Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I was called away for a vote, I missed some of the presentation. I am very interested in this area and, like others, I commend the witnesses on attending and on sharing their experiences with us. For me and for the other members, it is a learning experience and that is what we are here for. I know from my own county of Roscommon that there is now a lot of emphasis on biodiversity and we find that people are beginning to talk about it. They do not want to see products like glyphosate being sprayed around the place, which is good. I have a few questions but if they have been answered already, the witnesses should tell me that and I can get the information from the other committee members.

I am interested in the issue of buy-in from the public. How is that going? Does the council ever run workshops for the public or the schools? I had a question as to whether the council is completely glyphosate-free.

However, I understand that in certain cases it still has to be used with invasive species or whatever. I accept that. Regarding the buying of the machine, how expensive was that? How much of a budget does the council have for all this each year? Obviously it must be increasing its budget for this type of work to be done.

What the council is doing is commendable. I studied horticulture and in the years ahead I believe there will be many discussions about glyphosate, having read about it. One never hears the true stories until years have gone by. In my view, we should eliminate it everywhere we can. I know it is needed in some cases and farmers need it sometimes for weed control, but where we can eliminate it we should do so. However, is there buy-in from the public? Is there a programme through the schools? Young people are great. They are all into biodiversity, tunnels and so forth now. There is also the cost of the machine. How effective was the machine?