Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 57 states that all hedges cut and uplands burned under section 8 of the Act must be included in a register to be located with the Department of Communications, Climate Action and the Environment and to be made publicly available. Amendment No. 58 also suggests that hedgerows cut under the pilot scheme as proposed in section 8 of this Act and under any section 70 order should be included in a register that is made publicly available.

I will speak first to amendment No. 57. What is important to highlight and what is clear is that this is not simply a hedge by hedge issue. There is a collective concern in respect of the hedgerows of Ireland. They are part of a shared heritage. They are the conduits of our nature and have a value for all of the citizens in Ireland. They contribute to the global responsibility of a shared planet. Ireland and the Irish Government has in two key areas made strong and key references to hedgerows. In its representations in respect of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, Ireland has been very clear that hedgerows constitute a large portion of our habitat maintenance and greening in order to qualify for the greening section of the CAP payment, which constitutes almost a third of the payment. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine seems to be very far ahead of the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in this area. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine under the current GLAS scheme lists extensively very specific measures that will be applied in respect of hedgerows, for example, the margin around each hedgerow, whether there is a bee box, and which particular species is being supported and how.

We are moving towards a period of time in which, in order for farmers to access their GLAS payment scheme, the single farm payment or any other schemes that may be considered meriticious, there will need to be extensive indicators provided. As we move towards the 2020 wave of CAP, it is increasingly likely that we will need actual concrete results. For example, if the yellowhammer were to disappear from Ireland, as it may well as Senator Norris has described, Ireland will no longer be eligible for payments in respect of the yellowhammer habitat. There is a very direct interlinked economic case to be made. That is why we are suggesting that we need to register and know exactly what is happening under this legislation.

Along with the carrot of the CAP payment, not far down the line we will be looking as a nation at the stick of penalties and fines in respect of failure to meet our climate change targets and emissions. That which we cannot prove we are delivering upon in terms of, for example, sequestration through our hedgerows will need to be proven and delivered upon under other targets in other areas. We are looking for something that we will discuss later when we discuss the pollinator plan. Ireland will need to know and be able to prove what it is doing in respect of our hedgerows and how they are contributing and meriting CAP payments and greening. The Irish EU Commissioner, Phil Hogan, is currently fighting for a larger role for greening within the payments from CAP. At a time of extraordinary vulnerability for our farmers due to Brexit, these payments are crucial if we are to find a way through what will be an economically testing period for farmers.

At a time when we are representing our interest in that way, there is a danger that this legislation would be perceived by Brussels and others as representing a significant message from Government that the preservation and conservation of hedgerows is not of the same degree of priority as it was when we last applied for CAP farming and that the hedgerows that we have cannot be considered with the same merits and on the same grounds as previously in terms of meeting our climate change targets. We would be weakening our case. This amendment is a small and practical suggestion in order to at least monitor what is happening so as to have some chance to ameliorate the weakening of our case as represented by this legislation.I previously asked if the Minister had engaged with the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment and the entire legislation had been proofed against Ireland's climate change targets, but we have not received a satisfactory answer to that question.

With regard to amendment No. 58, people have contacted us to say they face obstacles when they seek to report illegal cutting of hedgerows and gorse burning out of season with devastating consequences, including the contamination of water and, for example, the cutting off of electricity to the Aran Islands in early March. They are asked whether the landowner has a section 70 order. The amendment proposes that where such orders are issued, they should be recorded in order that they would be publicly available and people would know whether hedgerows had been cut legitimately. Our group tabled practical amendments to strengthen the section 70 regime which would have allowed landowners to actively seek an order to better deliver what they believed to be road safety. Our amendment also provides that concerned citizens could seek section 70 orders. The order system, while established and functional for more than 20 years, could have been strengthened. I am concerned, however, that the proposal seems not only to fail to keep a record of section 70 orders and make them publicly available but also ensure councils will maintain records of hedges cut for road safety reasons. It is proposed to abolish the section 70 order system and move towards something closer to a free-for-all without regulation or monitoring. Amendment No. 58 would represents an improvement in, and a strengthening of, section 70 transparency. We have bigger battles ahead in later amendments.