Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I did not get a chance to speak in the debate on the matter on Tuesday, but I wish to highlight and congratulate the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine on the new scheme permitting the planting of up to 1 ha of native Irish trees without a licence. Anyone who knows me is aware of my absolute grá for native Irish trees. This is the month of the rowan tree - the mountain ash - which provides protection for one's home, so I recommend that all Senators plant a rowan tree, also known as mountain ash. It is a beautiful tree that protects your home. That is the power of native Irish trees.

An issue in the news this morning, and one on which I have previously called for a debate, is hedgerow management and, indeed, the eco-schemes within the new Common Agricultural Policy, CAP. I refer to the power that is vested in hedgerows the length and breadth of the country. The penal laws left a positive legacy in the context of fields and lands having to be walled off with hedgerows. They are biodiversity highways that sequester thousands of units of carbon every single year. There are so many farmers who are carbon neutral because of hedgerows. It is time to start talking about how to manage that and protect it. There is a need to educate farmers to allow them to protect our beautiful hedgerows because there is so much rich biodiversity - flora and fauna - within them. We should harvest that power.