David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The debate has certainly moved on. In the last Parliament, I was the only Member of the Seanad to oppose section 8. I could not get another Member to stand for me to get a vote or to act as a teller. It is really terrific that we have had such a diverse expression of opinion.

We have to take into account what the facts are. The Minister has pretty much accepted that a large number of birds are under threat of extinction. She instanced six pairs of nesting curlews. How fantastic. It is hardly overcrowding on a grand scale. Many birds and small mammals are actually getting very close to extinction, including the curlew and the corncrake. When my mother was in central Africa, she used to ache for the sound of the corncrake. Now, one can travel the length and breadth of Ireland but one will not hear one. The cuckoo was another bird one used to hear regularly but it is practically gone. Small mammals such as bats, hares and stoats are also endangered.

I will not rehearse the whole debate but I will put a few established scientific facts on the record. Yellowhammer, linnet and greenfinch nest well into September. As a result, hedge cutting is damaging to them when it takes place at this time. At the other end of the season, curlew and other upland breeding birds have begun their nesting in March and they will also be impacted. They require tall vegetation in which to nest. Burning in March will destroy this kind of habitat. Other wildlife animal areas have also been affected. I have already mentioned butterflies, but moths, hedgehogs, bats and so on are also affected, not to mention bees. This is at a time when we are just beginning to roll out the all-Ireland pollinator plan. One policy contradicts another.

As has been said before, there are six months in the year when they can already cut the hedges. I did not quite understand what my colleague from Bantry was saying when he set out that he was one particular kind of farmer whereas there are others. Perhaps it is a lack of information on my part. I do not see why being a tillage farmer sowing seeds means one has to rape the hedgerows. I do not see it at all. I will leave it there for the time being except to say in conclusion that reviewing legislation from other member states demonstrates that we are quite out of kilter with what is happening there. They are far more conservation conscious than we are.