Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the Minister's engagement on this issue and her openness to the removal of the term "grubbing or destroying otherwise" from the Bill. We should acknowledge the progress we have made in the Seanad in respect of the debate. Unfortunately, I am not convinced about the pilot scheme. I just do not see it there, across the 26 counties, so I cannot in honesty vote for this section of the Bill. As Senator Higgins has pointed out, we have not even touched upon upland burnings in March. In respect of climate change, things are moving so rapidly. We have seen the change of seasons already and we have seen nesting patterns change.

I believe that this Bill could be improved and strengthened if it could go to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine to allow the different stakeholders to come in and give evidence at that stage. It could inform the Bill further and possibly strengthen it. We pretty much just get soundbites in here, which is not meant as a criticism of anyone, but by carrying out pre-legislative scrutiny we could allow those stakeholders to come in and talk honestly and openly about their concerns. I think the Bill would be better for it. That gives both sides, the farming community and the environmentalists, their say. It is a way we can move on. Like many other Senators, I have been doing my own research, but it is not as comprehensive as what we could find out through pre-legislative scrutiny. The Bill should go ahead without section 8. Section 8 should go for pre-legislative scrutiny where we can have a really positive engagement to make this as strong as possible.

I thank all the Senators here for their co-operation and hard work in improving the Bill. I would also like to acknowledge that we have often killed off that divisive language, townies as opposed to urban or anything like that, and that we are actually working for the betterment of our environment, both for the farming community and the urban community.