Agreed.
The dogged, relentless progress of this Bill through the Dail is propelled mostly by the IFA who seem to be up behind it with a tractor.
As we know, the IFA is a very powerful lobby group who represent the interests of their members – the farmers of Ireland.
With the best will in the world you have to wonder why farmers should need more than the current six months of the year to cut hedges and grub out ‘scrub’ until you learn that farmers are compelled by the the Department of Agriculture to ensure that every square inch of their lands are in production or they, the Department, will deduct money from the farmers’ Basic payment.
In fact, so scrupulous are they in their demands that they now use satellite photography to survey farmland and calculate acreage not in production. I have it from a farmer friend that they will have tillage farmers remove a single tree from the middle of a field or deduct the acreage of shade that the tree is casting on the crop.
Not all farmers are rich – in fact most of them are not and the Basic payment is vital to their survival. Farmers say they cannot comply with the demands of the Department during the winter months because the land is too wet and the weather too vile. It has to be said – winters here can be very long and very wet and heavy machinery will compact and destroy soils in these conditions.
Another point worth note is that much of this grubbing and cutting of scrub and hedgerows is in direct conflict with the All Ireland Pollinator plan which the Department has signed up to support.
So I don’t know what the answer is except to lobby TD’s.

Thank you Karina and good work.
We also had a very successful demonstration today outside the Dail.
I’ll put some pictures up later.