Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The story told by Deputy Michael Healy-Rae is horrific and was tragic for the lady involved. There is no doubt that hedgerows should be maintained such that they are not a danger to people such as that lady or any other road user. That is beyond question. The Members who are concerned about the Bill do not suggest that we should disregard road safety but, rather, the contrary, as we have repeatedly stated. Most of those on my side of this debate have vociferously advocated for road safety in many other debates in the House. Although the story told by the Deputy is a terrible one and there is no doubt that we must find measures to ensure that hedgerows and roadways are maintained such that they are not a danger to road users, whether walkers, cyclists or motorists, it does not follow that the measures in the Bill are the way to go about doing that.

It is equally important to maintain the biodiversity of the country and the planet because humans, birds, bees, plants and trees are interconnected and interdependent. We need each other. If we disregard one species in the misguided belief that we are prioritising another, we will be cutting off our nose to spite our face. That is what is happening on the macro global level: we have damaged our environment to the extent that it is questionable whether we will be able to sustain human life in the longer term and whether some parts of the world will remain habitable. Parts of the planet are turning into deserts because of a lack of biodiversity and the impact of climate change.

Great civilisations have collapsed because of degradation of the environment. As I have previously stated in the House, the great civilisations of ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt collapsed because they did not pay enough attention to the maintenance of the canal network which fertilised the river plains and maintained the biodiversity and fertility of those areas. That is from where the biblical myths of plagues of locusts and so on come. The civilisations collapsed because they failed to protect the things that sustained them. That is exactly what is now happening on a global level. When a third of bee species are threatened with extinction, it is not just about the bees, it is about us and the pollination of the crops we need to produce the food we eat to survive. That is what we are talking about. Nature is about interconnection. It is an ecosystem in which all species are interconnected and interdependent but we are destroying huge parts of that ecosystem.

I often raise the issue of forestry but hedgerows and scrub are of similar importance. Scrub is a baby forest. A hedgerow is a linear forest. The desperately low level of forest cover in this country is a serious problem. Farmers may point out that they have to make a living from the land and they are absolutely right. I agree with them. We must help, support and incentivise farmers to protect biodiversity and increase afforestation and the natural wild growth which will sustain biodiversity. It should not be an us-against-them debate. I have no doubt that the vast majority of farmers know far more about land and wildlife than do I. However, the economic pressure on farmers can sometimes lead them into conflict with the best guardianship of the land as a whole. That is not through a lack of care and it is not the fault of farmers but that pressure exists. It is evident in debates on the national herd and its expansion, which is tied in with global markets and profit. It is not the fault of small farmers and this debate is not about being against farmers. We want to support farmers, who should get handsomely paid for maintaining the diversity of the land, increasing afforestation and allowing the regeneration of natural scrub and forestry. We should not allow the current tension on this issue to lead to the further depletion of biodiversity on the land because that would damage us all.

On amendment No. 26, which seeks to delete section 8, I agree with Deputy Michael Healy-Rae that at the root of this problem is that local authorities no longer have enough employees to maintain the roads and cut back dangerous trees or hedgerows. We now leave it to individuals to do so and give them the legal power to make decisions about whether a hedgerow is a danger to road users. That is not the way we should do things. People should be employed by the local authorities to maintain the hedgerows rather than carte blanchebeing given to landownersto cut down hedgerows in a manner which is damaging to biodiversity and which, consequently, affects animal and human life.

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