Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)

I rise to call for a review of the hedge cutting policy. Rural roads are closing all around the rural counties of Ireland. The farmers are brilliant, with 99% of them cutting their hedges when they need to be cut and looking after them well. However, there are people who are not doing it. There are landowners who are away and others who just do not do it and we need to do something about that. I was elected in June last year and from June to September, I was inundated with phone calls about hedge cutting along roads and at dangerous junctions. In fairness, I took it upon myself to go out with a strimmer some weekends to cut at dangerous junctions because older people were travelling them. I was told that I should not do it but I did it anyway because it needed to be done. I did not do it for the sake of it. Old people were ringing me who did not have line of sight. We are now in silage season. Big tractors are going out onto roads, coming out of farm gates where hedges need to be trimmed. They have their signs up. I talked to two contractors who had their signs up but people were not looking at the signs when they were coming up because the signs were stuck in the grass.

In fairness, the councillors in Donegal have been getting on to me really hard about this this week. Secondary roads are not being cut at all. They say the main roads can be cut if it is dangerous but then when they agree to do it, there is no funding there. That is what I am being told. I agree with biodiversity. It has its place and we really need to look after nature too, but surely there is something out there in this day and age that we can look at in other countries. What do they do? What machinery do they use to do hedge cutting that would not affect the biodiversity too much? Somebody is going to get hurt out there because the secondary roads are not being cut at this time of year, particularly with growth just going mad.