Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I assure Deputy O'Donovan of one thing, which is I acknowledge there is a problem. I visited the Deputy's constituency myself in the company of officials from my Department and we saw at first hand specific cases of difficulty involving people who sought to plant their land. The problem is that the blanket ban is ruining it. Last week's meeting went a long way towards resolving this problem and the proposal is to come up with an arrangement by next September that we can bring to Europe. If we are given time between now and September, we should have a plan in place to bring to Europe, where we can explain to the officials there that the overall blanket ban should be lifted, that this should apply only to the designated areas in which the hen harrier actually is in place and one should be able to plant in areas other than that specific area.

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