Donal Hickey: Cutting hedges — there are better options

Environmental groups, including Birdwatch, are calling on Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue to stop allowing the removal of hedgerows on farmland as it poses a threat to a range of endangered bird species

Animals and a range of insects make their homes in hedgerows while wildflowers provide food for essential pollinators, such as bees, from spring to autumn. There are also practical benefits for landowners in the way of drainage and shelter for livestock

It’s a strange irony that the EU, which has spent billions in funding intensive farming during much of the last half-century, is now spending billions through several schemes to help restore an environment that has been hugely damaged in this so-called modernisation of agriculture.

Vast changes in the Irish landscape since the 1970s — most obviously the removal of ditches and hedgerows — are there for all to see. In many places, the countryside has changed almost beyond recognition, with many small fields often becoming one big field.