Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have listened with interest to the debate so far. As all Senators know, I am from a farming background and live in a rural area on small country roads. From what I have heard so far, it is important that somebody set the record straight on behalf of the Irish farmer. Even the phraseology, "slash and burn", suggests that farmers are trying purposely to harm, damage and inflict suffering on birds. There is a big expense involved in the hedge-cutting we are all talking about, an expense the farmer could do without. If it were not in the interest of the safety of the road, farmers would let their hedges grow for three, four, five or ten years because it costs them every year to cut them. They are not doing it to get the birds; they are doing it for road safety.

Regarding road hedges in particular, the main reason farmers want to go out in the month of August to cut hedges is that it is their busiest month and they are on the road with large tractors and trailers, drawing silage and grain. They are at a height and can see cars coming. The car is down low where the hedge and the grass is lying out; the car cannot see the farmer. The farmer is cutting hedges in the interest of somebody else's safety. If there were - God between us and all harm - an accident, the farmer is safer in his tractor than the person in the car. Farmers here are acting diligently in favour of the motorist, cyclist and pedestrian. They are also very cognisant of birds. As a farmer, I can honestly stand up here and say that I have sown more hedges than I have removed or cut. Farmers have the best interests of nature in their hearts at all times, but by some of the phraseology and the language here today, they are being damned. As I said, cutting ditches is an added expense for them, yet they do it every year in the interests of the motorist, cyclist and pedestrian.