Mr. Donal Sheehan:

Thank you, Chairman, for the opportunity to speak to your committee, and I thank Dr. Moore for the invitation. My name is Donal Sheehan. I am a dairy farmer who milks 72 spring-calving dairy cows in Castlelyons, part of the River Bride valley area of north Cork. As well as being a farmer, I am one of the people involved in the BRIDE project. The project is one of many European Innovation Partnership projects, EIPs, scattered throughout the country. Ours was set up to provide a template and a knowledge transfer for the wider agricultural community on different aspects of environmental and sustainable food production practices. It is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the EU. It was initiated by two farmers and an ecologist, all frustrated by the way our farming system was damaging the environment while farmers themselves were being blamed by the public. There was a need to showcase a more positive image as well as improving biodiversity and water quality and reducing our carbon footprint. The project aims to incentivise farmers to retain all their natural farmland habitats, that is, what is called the space for nature. That term is now widely used not just here but in the EU generally. We also incentivise farmers to increase the space for nature, especially where habitats such as hedgerows have been removed over the years. The project pays out capital funding of €2,000 per farmer for the creation of new habitats such as hedgerows and woodlands. It also provides an annual results-based payment based on the ecological quality of the various habitats, including hedgerows, found on the farm.

To answer Deputy Browne's question, because I am a farmer, I am very much aware of the paperwork involved in farming nowadays, especially for a generation that may not be used to it. There is no paperwork involved in hedgerow management. You use a mechanical hedge cutter. You side-trim the hedgerows; you do not top them. Our project offers lower payments where hedgerow management is poorer. If your hedges have the standard short, back and sides, we will call it, that is not the way we want them managed, so you will get a lower payment. If the hedgerows are allowed to mature and to grow, you get more or less the top payment. I am not sure if the committee has hard copies of my presentation - I sent it on as a Word document - but the scorecards for both new hedgerows and existing hedgerows are on it. Ultimately, we want farmers to start managing their hedgerows in a similar fashion, with everyone singing from the same environmental hymn sheet. As Dr. Moore said, there needs to be a payment for these habitats because there is currently no value placed on them. There is no legal protection in respect of them.

As Members will see in the presentation if they have it, we funded farmers to the tune of €100,000 last year for putting in capital measures such as hedgerows, woodlands, ponds, field margins, etc. All of them can be taken out because of the Wildlife Act. There is a discrepancy in the Act. I will quote the relevant passage in the Act because it is quite interesting.

It states:

40. - (1)(a) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy, during the period beginning on the 1st day of March and ending on the 31st day of August in any year, any vegetation growing on any land not then cultivated.

(b) It shall be an offence for a person to cut, grub, burn or otherwise destroy any vegetation growing in any hedge or ditch during the period mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection.

Section 40(2) states:

(2)Subsection (1)of this section shall not apply in relation to - (a) the destroying, in the ordinary course of agriculture or forestry, of any vegetation growing on or in any hedge or ditch;

In other words, a person is not allowed to take out hedgerows except in the business of farming. It might seem severe to farmers who are listening but that has done more damage to farming because our image is being ruined. We are perceived as being the destroyers of the environment. We cannot blame farmers as this is the price of cheap food production, with habitats being removed purely to increase food production. Until there is some sort of protection and value put on our hedgerows and all other natural habitats, this will continue.