Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)

I appreciate the interest the Minister has shown in the matter in his reply to Deputy Tuffy and others. It is a very serious issue and needs to be addressed either through this Bill or other urgent legislation. Last Friday a lorry driver drew my attention to the fact that he needed to go down a narrow country road to get to his house. He regularly loses the side mirrors on his lorry on trees along one particular stretch of the road. All other landowners along the road cut their hedges to allow considerable road clearance for lorries, etc. However, one individual who does not live in the jurisdiction completely ignores any pressure exerted by the county council. I was advised that if this took place across the Border, he would need to adhere to the law. I was interested to hear what Deputy Tuffy said. In such circumstances we need to have some legal redress. The same thing happens on Carn Lane outside Clones, a walking area in which one of the landowners refuses to maintain his hedges. I hope we can find a mechanism to address the matter through this or a dedicated Bill. Bills are taken through the House on which the debate is guillotined sufficiently frequently that there is no reason it cannot be done.

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