Mr. Simon White:

I will say it is a legitimate area because these trees are going to die. All over this country, there are roadsides owned by farmers with these trees that are going to die. They are dying at the moment. One can see them dead. They are dangerous.

There is another problem there which is that, as they fall, they can kill people. If a farmer has trees along the road and if he or she knows they are dead or knows they are affected, it is the farmer's responsibility as a landowner to deal with them, but how does one deal with them? There are people being put to the pin of their collar because they have to deal with these trees. They can cut them down, but how is one to deal with traffic? I had a dangerous tree recently that I had to cut down and I arranged management on the road - I got permission from the Garda to do it. I did it, but I was up in a cherry-picker, the drivers ignored the orders of the people stopping them in high-vis jackets, etc., and they were driving underneath me lopping branches down. One cannot do that anymore. What we have to do is have very expensive traffic-management plans and get the Garda or companies in to do that. It will be a significant cost.

I have a lot of older established woodland. If I have somebody who comes shooting through my forest and if a branch falls on top of his or her head in a storm, I am liable. I cannot fell that tree unless I have got a licence. There is one loophole in that. It is that if one is within 30 metres of the road, one does not need a licence to cut a tree if one identifies that it is dangerous, but if it is on one's land, one cannot identify that and one has to get an authority, such as the local authority, to determine that the tree is dangerous. The Senator should try and get local authority people to come out and go through the forests and the land of this country to identify what trees are dangerous. They will not do it. However, if something happens, one is liable. How is one to get insurance for that because if it is determined that one knew the tree was dangerous, it is one's responsibility and they will not cover one with the insurance?