Time to tame hogweed scourge

IT is shameful that the agri-industry is doing nothing to control the giant hogweed epidemic that is destroying our riverbanks and will do huge damage to our rural economy.

Already fishing tourists are being advised to avoid Ireland because our rivers are dangerous places and it is only a matter of time before farmers are being sued by people who have been burned by the weed. Giant hogweed is a poisonous invasive plant that can cause lifelong burns if its sap comes into contact with human skin. It colonises riverbanks, smothering all other vegetation and on many Munster rivers it is now out of control.

It is not a county council problem and it could and should be solved by farmers. If every farmer along a river course controlled it for three years and prevented it from seeding it could be brought under control and eventually eradicated. It should be a condition of the Single Farm Payment an/or REPS that a farmer control giant hogweed on his holding. The last government missed an opportunity when it “broadened” the REPS scheme to admit intensive farmers. Commercial farms where the riverbanks are abandoned as waste are the main source of the problem.