Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage debate -
Tuesday, 25 Jun 2024

I welcome our witnesses and members to this meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Today we are meeting with representatives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service and we are delighted to have them before the committee today. This is a meeting we had discussed holding for the last year or 18 months and we had to defer a couple of times. We are very pleased that we can proceed with it today. I am delighted to see the witnesses brought a full team with them. From the National Parks and Wildlife Service, we are joined by Mr. Niall Ó Donnchú, director general, Mr. Malachy Corcoran, director of engagement, corporate and specialist supports, Ms Áinle Ní Bhriain, director of international and EU engagement, Ms Caitriona Ryan, director of national parks and nature reserves, Ms Ciara Carberry, director of nature conservation, Dr. Andy Bleasdale, director of scientific advice and research and Ms Sorcha de Brúch, director of licensing, legislation and guidance directorate. Members were circulated the opening statements in advance and I thank the witnesses for providing that information.

We also received documentation in our correspondence today on wildlife updates.

In a quick note on privilege before we start, I remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the place where Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. Those witnesses attending in the committee room are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions to today's meeting. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything said at the meeting. Both members and witnesses are expected not to abuse the privilege they enjoy and it is my duty as Chair to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, witnesses will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practices to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the Houses, or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

The format for today's meeting will be seven-minute segments for members to ask questions and to get the answers within those seven minutes as well. We will go around the room via a rota. I invite Mr. Ó Donnchú to make his opening statement now.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach agus na daoine uaisle. We have most of the team here today. We have one director who has an excellent excuse, her young son is graduating today, and she sends her apologies. That is Suzanne Nally, our director of wildlife enforcement, nature and protection. I am sure he will be very happy to be mentioned on the record here. I thank the committee for the invitation to attend this meeting. We are pleased to be here to engage with the committee on the National Parks and Wildlife Service strategic review. I am joined by my colleagues, whom the Chair has already introduced. The committee has expressed an interest in hearing about the National Parks and Wildlife Service strategic review and my colleagues are here to assist members in furnishing the information required by the committee in that regard. We are here to speak with the committee about resources, staffing and funding, the nature restoration plan, national parks expansion and management plans, Natura site management plans, wildlife crimes enforcement and prosecutions and the climate and nature fund.

It is timely to be before the committee this week, after the Nature Restoration Law was finally approved by the Environment Council in Luxembourg on 17 June. This will have significant influence on our work into the future and I look forward to discussing this in detail with the committee during this and future sessions.

I am pleased to confirm that the strategic action plan developed to deliver on the NPWS strategic review has been substantially delivered with almost all actions completed or ongoing. Indeed, many of the actions that are ongoing, are ongoing in nature. This is a significant achievement and I wish to acknowledge the input of this committee in particular, in regard to that strategic action plan, and keeping itself informed as we make progress with it. I acknowledge and thank our Ministers and the Government, as well as this committee for its supports and insights in that regard. This support has delivered an increase in our combined current and capital budget from €28.7 million in 2020 to €69.1 million in 2024. That excludes payroll, which is running at €24 million per annum. That has also contributed to an increase in staffing numbers from 350 in 2020 to 537 as of the end of April 2024. That is a significant increase by any measure.

The NPWS has also availed of funding through the EU LIFE programme and is currently commencing an ambitious programme known as LIFE SNaP, which will draw down €20 million in EU funding over nine years. The project will deliver an ambitious integrated data platform to house biodiversity-related data, which will also serve as a key tool for nature conservation management and related policy development in Ireland. We are a science-driven organisation. Data is essential for informing that science, and that science in turn is informing policy and direction. The project will also undertake a range of other actions, including nature restoration measures and associated monitoring. My colleagues are here to speak to the committee about that also. It will run for nine years, from 2024 to 2032.

As part of the delivery of the action plan, we published the first NPWS strategic plan in June 2023. This identifies our mission very simply in two words; protect nature. It sets out our core values, key strategic goals and our core areas of focus for the period to the end of 2025.

It is worth reiterating for the benefit of the committee what those values are: a deep love of nature and a commitment to its care and safeguarding; partnership, teamwork and excellence as well as a well-grounded pride in our professionalism and scientific integrity; a strong identity and a trusted voice for nature; transparency and accountability in our decision-making; and excellence in the service that we deliver to the public.

The priority of the NPWS is the protection, conservation and restoration of Ireland’s biodiversity. The strategic plan, and the national biodiversity action plan published earlier this year, which we will also discuss today, set out how we will achieve that objective and our ambition to play our part in the collective response required across Government and society to the biodiversity emergency. Dáil Éireann declared a biodiversity crisis in 2019 and the work of the NPWS in particular is central to Government’s and society's efforts to tackle this crisis. Nature and biodiversity in Ireland face many challenges. Many of the key indicators are going in the wrong direction and some of our EU-protected habitats are not in a favourable conservation status. If we do not bring about improvements, we may face further infringement action from the EU and may face heavy fines. Beyond that, in the context of the cycle of life, the singular dependency on a healthy set of natural ecosystems is now self-evident. We are the first generation to have that information and we are the last generation that can do anything about it. That is a sobering thought.

Ireland has always supported the core principles underpinning the proposed EU nature restoration regulation. There is no equivocation about Ireland's support for that from day one, while also acknowledging the significant challenges involved in meeting its ambition. Work has already started on a participatory stakeholder engagement process which will form a key component in the development of Ireland’s nature restoration plan over the next two years. We will talk to the committee in more detail about that. That consultative process will give all stakeholders an opportunity to shape Ireland's plan so that it works for farmers, for landowners, for society and for nature. The Government knows that nature restoration on agricultural ecosystems cannot happen without farmers' active participation and consent. We are keenly and acutely aware of that. In the context of some of the pre-agreement consultation there was significant engagement with farming, fisher and land-owning communities. The Government has already stated that all restoration measures will be voluntary. Any restoration measures that landowners choose to participate in will be incentivised and resourced. That is key, that we value those nature services in the same way that we value other services that are produced from the land. This is why the completion of the national restoration plan will be aligned with the opening of the Government’s €3.15 billion climate and nature fund in 2026. This fund is expected to play an important role in resourcing the measures in that national restoration plan.

We are expanding the network of national parks and nature reserves across the country, including through the establishment of two national parks in the last 12 months, the Brú Na Bóinne National Park at Dowth in County Meath and the new Páirc Náisiúnta na Mara in County Kerry, which is our first marine national park, while also increasing investment in our six existing national parks and the existing network of nature reserves. The publication of legislation to provide a legal basis for national parks is also an agreed action arising from the NPWS review. We are currently assessing the requirements of such legislation and considering how best to advance legislation in such a way as to maximise possible benefits to the national park system.

In terms of management plans for national parks, which the committee wishes to raise today, a high-level framework has been developed that provides an outline of areas the management plans should address. We will shortly tender for support for completing plans for the six national parks, namely the Burren National Park, Connemara National Park, Killarney National Park, Glenveagh National Park, Wicklow Mountains National Park and Wild Nephin National Park. That is not to suggest for a second that in the absence of those plans there are not existing, discrete plans for addressing issues like deer management, rhododendrons, visitor management and so on. The challenge here is that we need to connect and line up those discrete plans into overall management plans for each of the national parks and then connect those management plans nationally so there is cohesiveness and coherence in what we are trying to do.

We are strengthening action on wildlife crime within the NPWS through law enforcement, inter-agency collaboration, policy engagement, community engagement, public awareness and education. We are putting an emphasis on capacity-building along the entire enforcement chain in NPWS, from rangers through to district conservation officers and administrative, legal and scientific staff, and are providing training and supports to our front-line officers.

We continue our work on reviewing and updating relevant legislation to ensure Ireland's laws better protect nature, comply with EU law and are easier and clearer in terms of compliance and enforcement. Last year saw the delivery of a range of statutory instruments underpinning the work of the NPWS. Most notable was the completion and commencement of the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2023. This hugely important legislation requires certain public bodies, including Departments, agencies and local authorities, to consider biodiversity in their plans, policies, decisions and actions. I am aware this committee had a significant engagement with that process. The Act also provides for the review of bog habitats, the making, amending and revocation of natural heritage area orders, and arrangements concerning biodiversity. I can confirm that, as of now, 96% of our special areas of conservation, SACs, are underpinned by statutory instrument. This is something that absolutely needed to be addressed. There were questions about it in the past. The entirety of that set of 423 SACs - 440 in total, 423 of which are subject to compliance - have site-specific conservation objectives setting out the targets associated with them.

We are determined to continue to deliver on the Government's unprecedented ambition for nature, particularly the ambitions articulated by the Minister of State with responsibility for nature, Deputy Noonan, and to respond comprehensively to the programme for Government commitment to strengthen the NPWS, improve its effectiveness and make it the voice for nature it needs to be. As director general, it is my privilege to work alongside incredible staff who, by and large, choose to work at the NPWS because they are responding to a calling that is core to our mission, that is, to protect nature. It is a privilege to witness at first hand the great work they do in protecting and safeguarding Ireland's natural heritage.

I hope committee members leave here today with a greater appreciation for what the NPWS has achieved and can achieve for Irish nature. I look forward to our engagement with them today. The confines of a room like this do not give a sense of the enormity and spectrum of the work we do. We make a point of connecting with our colleagues in the field. I extend an invitation to the Chairman and members to join us over the course of the summer. There is no better time to do it. We would love to accommodate them at any of our national parks, nature reserves or sites where we have implemented specific measures to protect nature. We would love to host them out in the field, so to speak.

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, to the meeting. I had a high expectation that he would drop in at some stage, given his commitment to the NPWS and to nature in general.

I thank Mr. Ó Donnchú for his invitation. Many of us would be willing to take him up on it. I recently visited the Coole Park bird breeding sanctuary with the Minister of State. Mr. Ó Donnchú is right that it is only when one is out there in the field, taking in the sights, sounds and smells, that one realises the extent of the work being done by the NPWS. Nature is all around us. It is not something that can be picked up from a book or watched on a television screen. It is good for the soul to get out in nature. We will take him up on his offer.

The first speaker on my list is Deputy Flaherty. However, as he has business in the Dáil Chamber, I go first to Deputy Gould.

I have visited The Gearagh a number of times. It is a wonderful and awe-inspiring place. The alluvial woodland there is very special. That is recognised in the fact The Gearagh carries every legal designation Ireland has available to it to protect such locations. Those protections are in place and have been for some time.

As I am sure members will know, the Gearagh is owned and managed by the ESB, so when we look at the Gearagh and the potential for protecting it and making a difference to ensure it is safeguarded for the future, we need to recognise it is owned by the ESB, that it manages it in a particular way and that it has reasons for doing that. Having said that, the ESB has been drawing up a management plan for The Gearagh, on which it is keen to work with us, and we are also keen to work more closely with the owners to make sure it is well protected for nature.

We are not closed to the idea, but I am not clear on what additional protection would be conferred on it by calling it a national park, given it has strong legal protection. I very much understand, however, the concerns people have about making sure it is properly protected and that we are not just trying to prevent harm to The Gearagh but are also trying to manage it proactively in the interests of the nature and habitats that are there. Steps are being taken at The Gearagh to manage the water levels to control flooding downstream and so on. We just need to be careful about how we go about it, but it is certainly something on which we are interested, I think it is fair to say, in taking a proactive role in looking after it.

I thank Ms Carberry. It is important to know it is high on the agenda. There are people, especially in west Cork but throughout the State, for whom it is a unique place. I mean no disrespect to the ESB, but the ESB's job is not about protecting The Gearagh, wildlife or biodiversity. It is not that it is going out to damage The Gearagh in any way, shape or form, but it has its own responsibilities. This cannot be left solely in the hands of the ESB. It is not that protections are not there, but there was a call to me for it to be made a national park. I echo those calls and encourage the NPWS to keep doing the work it is doing in order that we can progress it.

A park in my constituency, the Glen, is a hive of activity. What makes it unusual is that it is at the heart of an urban setting. This beautiful park has had very little landscaping done on it. It is in its natural environment. I see park runs every Saturday morning, where people run along the tracks . It is a beautiful amenity in the area. I would like more to be done about the Glen park. Moreover, over recent years, there were a number of fires at the park. What more could be done to prevent those fires and to protect the Glen park?

I will take that one, if I may. The Deputy may rest assured that any kind of nature value area is on our radar, as The Gearagh unquestionably is. The requirements of our companies change over time. I would argue that in some contexts, nature probably trumps a lot of utility issues right now, but it is certainly on our agenda.

I am not familiar with the Glen, but we will make ourselves familiar with it and revert to the committee or the Deputy in regard to it. As I said, high nature value areas always interest us, especially if we can hit that sweet spot between protecting and minding the nature and community use.

On fires, there are now extensive fire patrols in the air, and I think we have got better at education about fires. Maybe there could be more preventative actions as well as the education actions, but that eye in the sky is very important for the early detection of fires, the engagement with the fire services and so forth. That eye in the sky does not discriminate between land that is owned by us or that is in SACs.

If the eye in the sky detects fire, it reports to our colleagues on the ground and the fire services. If it is our property, the National Parks and Wildlife Service will be on the ground dealing with it with the fire services.

I appreciate that. When the NPWS looks at the Glen Park or Glen Valley Park - the name used depends on where people come from - maybe it could designate it as a special area of conservation. It is in the heart of the glen, with Ballyvolane on one side and part of the northern road that was built on its periphery. An area that is so unique and in the heart of an urban setting should be given special protection.

The Conor Pass was purchased. Can we get the final purchase figure?

I thank the witnesses and apologise for missing the opening statement. I was in the Chamber. Needless to say, I am come at this from a pronounced rural perspective. I am particularly concerned at what appears to be the exclusion of the National Association of Regional Game Councils, NARGC, from the process to date. I am fielding multiple calls about it in my constituency. I am particularly aware of the work game councils do right across Ireland. The NARGC is the largest bird conservation organisation and has a proud record of supporting bird conservation in Ireland. At club level, members invest more than €1 million of their own hard-earned money each year in conservation efforts.

Last September, as the witnesses will be aware, with only very limited consultation, four species of duck were removed from the open season order. I appreciate that is being challenged in the courts and the NPWS is limited in what it can say. However, there are concerns about calls to further restrict the hunting of wild birds in Ireland. These appear to be based more on ideological opposition to field sports and rural pursuits than any sound scientific evidence. It is vitally important that the NPWS ensures full and inclusive engagement with all stakeholders, including those involved in rural pursuits such as game hunting.

I have two specific questions. Will the NPWS confirm that all rural interests, including NARGC, will be included in future meetings of the NPWS stakeholder forum established under the NPWS strategic plan, as agreed by the Government? Will it commit to enhancing stakeholder engagement with game hunters and NARGC, as the representative body, with regard to licensing issues and anomalies in the interpretation of wildlife legislation? We have fallen between stools on both those points to date.

I thank the Deputy for those questions. If he had been present for my opening statement, he would have heard me say the NPWS is a science-led organisation. The science is hugely important to us, as is the data we collect. I cannot comment on that case but I will say that the removal of four almost extinct birds was in response to a legal obligation and what the science was showing us. I stress that those ducks are almost extinct. They are red-listed. I cannot comment further on that.

With regard to the strategic forum, we talk about our values and one of the values of the NPWS is partnership and engagement. Engagement with organisations like NARGC is hugely important to us. The complexity and totality of rural interests extend significantly beyond what NARGC represents. Nonetheless, it is hugely important the NPWS engages with that totality of interests. The strategic forum referenced by the Deputy has not been established yet. In consultation with the Minister, we will be inclusive in regard to the composition of that. The NPWS is a rural-based organisation and is hugely dependent on those communities. That engagement in terms of informing where we are going with various initiatives is very important.

With regard to the licensing issues to which the Deputy referred in his second question, NARGC was hugely important to us in the context of the licensing regime we introduced for deer hunting.

The association helped us to test it. It welcomed that and the NPWS welcomed its engagement with us in that respect. There is a significant amount of engagement with the organisation that has to continue and I can assure the Deputy it certainly will. The court case aside, the NPWS continues to engage with the NARGC at all levels from the Minister right through. I can give the commitment we will engage. My colleague, Ms Sorcha de Brúch, is responsible for licensing and would like to come in on this subject as well.

I thank the Deputy. The NARGC has been a great partner in developing e-licensing. We are rolling it out at the moment. It went live on 4 June and there has been a significant uptake in that process.

Further, the NPWS will go out to public consultation on a review of the Wildlife Act in the coming days. We would hugely welcome input from the NARGC and other rural organisations. We have had meetings with the NARGC and others informally to inform the initial part of that process. There will continue to be multiple ones. It will be a long process. By its very nature, any change of legislation by its very nature will be a long process and will take time. We absolutely welcome input from the NARGC and other organisations and are more than happy to meet them.

Being from rural Ireland, I am very aware of our game councils. There is nobody more passionate about conservation and wildlife than our game councils. These are people who live and breathe rural Ireland every day of the week. Will the witnesses give me a cast-iron assurance that NARGC will have a place at the stakeholder forum equal and on a par with any other agency on that and have the same input and invitations to any meetings and discussions as any other body?

I will give the Deputy a guarantee the NARGC will be engaged with in the stakeholder process we have with regard to this matter. The rest of the Deputy's question has a lot of caveats around cast-iron guarantees. I do not think anybody sitting here will give the Deputy a cast-iron guarantee of anything. That would not be telling the truth, to be fair. The NPWS absolutely accepts NARGC is a really important organisation to us and in representing rural pursuits and will be engaged by us in any stakeholder forum that is relevant to its area of interest.

-----and I have an excellent working relationship with the Minister of State but the game councils tell me he has had 50 meeting with environmental NGOs. It is very important, given the role NARGC has played in the cultivation, development, safeguarding and underpinning of values in rural Ireland. Our new Taoiseach said he would underpin everything that happens in rural Ireland as a key component to this Government. I know Mr. Ó Donnchú cannot give a cast-iron guarantee but I need an absolute assurance leaving here and when I go back to tell the good people of Longford that in terms of the stakeholder forum, NARGC will have the same voice and its views will carry the same weight as any NGO or other representative group within that organisation. In other words, NARGC will not be going in as part-players or as lip service and that its input and value is the same as any other organisation or representative group.

I appreciate the Chair's indulgence. I appreciate we are into a new consultation period with regard to the licensing issue and I would add the same caveat to that, which is that it is absolutely sacrosanct that NARGC is included in that process and that any contributions it makes are given the same weighting as any other organisation. There certainly is a view out there in the game council community that their voice has not been heard heretofore so in terms of the NPWS's assurances to date I am taking them at face value. It is something we will return to if we feel that commitment is not being followed through on.

Yes. It is one of the commitments in the action plan for the renewal of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The broader context for the establishment of that will be the review of the wildlife legislation. We would look to establish it, with the approval of the Minister, in the context of that.

Is Ms de Brúch saying there will not be a stakeholder forum in place until after that process at the back end of 2025? We would be in 2026 before a stakeholder forum is in place.

I am just trying to understand the timeline. This is why I am teasing it out.

No, I am saying the context for the establishment of that forum will be the review of the Wildlife Acts. That goes out to public consultation imminently, as Ms de Brúch pointed out. How long that public consultation and review will take will be driven by the feedback we get. We will probably get hundreds of submissions in that context and they will have to be considered. There are two questions. On how long the review will take, the answer is we do not know because it will be very complex. We are certainly not going to delay in the context of reviewing the submissions that come in-----

If I might finish my point, please. There are two questions which the Senator asked and I am trying not to conflate the two. How long this will take is something we do not know but the legislation needs to be reviewed so we will move as quickly as we can through that process, in consultation with the Minister. What I said about the forum is that it gives a context for the establishment of that forum and we would envisage doing it during that process and not at the end of that process.

That is a direct question and I will give a very direct answer to that. We will know in quarter 4 of 2024 what kind of response we get to the public consultation. We will have assimilated that response. We will absolutely need to engage with the entire set of stakeholders in this area, and there are a huge number of those, in the context of moving that review forward. We will need that input. I would say the logical time to talk about that forum is either quarter 4 of 2024 or quarter 1 of 2025. We will have other processes ongoing as well separate to that. We will get to that later. I think we are talking about the nature restoration law. We will have a significant consultation process going on too regarding the nature restoration law. We will certainly need help from various forums in that context.

It would be prudent. I had not intended spending my whole six minutes on this set of questions. I did not anticipate it being as difficult as it was. I would have thought that having a stakeholder forum in place as early as possible would assist in this process, as opposed to it being viewed separately, notwithstanding that the service has to do the full consultation. I would have thought the appropriate way would have been to have a stakeholder forum that could bring the viewpoints that come in to the NPWS in a joined-up-thinking process. Looking at other organisations, that is how you would approach things. You would go out with a full public consultation to all your groups but with a wider advisory body that would look at it, notwithstanding that is the job of the NPWS as an organisation. The Arts Council is an example. I would say that would be helpful.

I am anxious to see the stakeholder forum. We should not be afraid of a stakeholder forum. It is something that should be an integral part of this whole process because you have to have all the wider players together, notwithstanding the consultation process.

I think that is the point Deputy Flaherty was making. Having all of those diverse viewpoints in the room to have a wider discussion is helpful rather than it being a negative.

I welcome the representatives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to the committee. It is an amazing organisation, which has done amazing work. The Minister of State has left so I will not embarrass him when I say in his absence that the NPWS has a wonderful ambassador in the Minister of State, Deputy Malcolm Noonan. He comes with a great smile, great cheer and great enthusiasm for nature, biodiversity and everything they embody and imbue in the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I do not want to be given the other side of it but from in here, he is an amazing ambassador for the organisation and in his entire portfolio as a Minister of State. I acknowledge that because it is really important. Any time the Minister of State takes a Commencement matter in the Seanad or appears at this committee or in the Dáil, we see his enthusiasm for and commitment to the subject and his absolute integrity. That is an important message.

I also thank the National Parks and Wildlife Service. I am very familiar with the services it provides all over the country. I thank the witnesses for sharing the NPWS national strategic plan 2022 to 2025. It is impressive and, in fairness, the service has a wonderful photographer and the PowerPoint presentation gives a sense of what the organisation is all about.

Regarding the stakeholder engagement, whenever that happens, I wish it well. I sit on the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine so when we talk about nature restoration, particularly of agriculture and ecosystems or, in simple terms, farmlands and places where farmers make their incomes and live, I am conscious that without the active participation, engagement and consent of farmers, we are not going to be successful. There is a greater acknowledgement of that as nature restoration, the protection of our biodiversity and conservation have evolved. That is really important.

Mr. Ó Donnchú touched on the importance of partnership, engagement, inclusivity, the acknowledgement of the rural communities and the significance they have in our nature restoration. Land is used successfully for production but its importance is now recognised in respect of general nature and biodiversity. Some land needs to be left aside to be nurtured. Then there is greater diversity, recreation and keeping some of our countryside open, where possible. Those are some thoughts I wanted to share.

I am particularly interested in the NPWS's plans for education. How do we bring the next generation along? We have a lot to learn from the generations below us but what are the service's exciting plans and vision for how we can tap into our schools, provide education programmes and bring more people out into the field of its expertise? Ultimately, the NPWS acts as custodian on our behalf, and that is recognised. Mr. Ó Donnchú spoke about voluntarism and how the NPWS wishes to develop that. Then there are community programmes. Will Mr. Ó Donnchú set out for us what the plan or vision is to encourage the involvement of younger people and communities? Will he address engagement with the agricultural sector, particularly regarding the more rural and sensitive sites of which the NPWS is custodian?

I thank the Senator very much for those comments. I absolutely agree with him. The first responder to nature is the landowner and farmer. We are very conscious of a proactive and respectful engagement with the farmer and landowner. They have more knowledge than we do of how land performs, what it does and so forth. We have had a hugely significant engagement, for instance, with our Wild Atlantic Nature project, which recently won an EU award. Right down along the western seaboard, this project is looking to engage with farmers in the uplands on farming for and with nature.

There are several very good examples throughout the country, in particular the success of the ACRES scheme with which we are involved, but our own farm plan scheme too. My colleague Dr. Andy Bleasdale will probably speak to that in a moment.

To address the other three points raised by the Senator, regarding education, we get 5.36 million visitors a year to our national parks and nature reserves. Access to those national parks is free. That is a policy that is not going to change. There have been some questions about that in the past but access is free and it will remain free. Many of those visitors are multigenerational families. Very often, it is the first encounter with nature for many of those kids visiting farms. We have active education programmes in most of our national parks, though sadly not all, but every visit is an educational visit. Even if there is not an education team, there are education boards. To give a number of examples, there is a very active education programme in Killarney National Park but also the most contemporary interpretative centre we have done for a national park is at Killarney House, the gateway to that park. A huge number of the exhibits there are utterly interactive, specifically to interest kids. It is fascinating to see the younger generation in particular handle some of the exhibits in there. We do not encourage that in the parks for obvious reasons but it is great to see children out engaging with nature. We have a very good programme in Wicklow as well. Wicklow Mountains National Park gets the largest footfall of any national park which creates other kinds of challenges as the Chair knows.

Nonetheless, that openness mentioned by the Senator is hugely important. We have a fantastic team of education guides in Glenveagh National Park. They may be world-leading in what they do. We have just agreed, for the first time in the history of NPWS, a head of education post which we will look to fill next year to draw those disparate programmes together. In the past, what tended to happen was it tended to grow organically in each of the parks. Each came with a very different accent and was reliant on local enthusiasm. However, that needs to be drawn together. There is some absolutely wonderful work being done at that entry level education. Dr. Bleasdale will speak to the more complex research and scientific work that is being done, which is hugely important in working with the university sector at third level and with second level and so on. However, we are certainly an organisation that encourages that openness and facilitates visits and activities in nature for children and multigenerational families.

On volunteerism, we have a number of programmes working with Volunteer Ireland. I will go back to Killarney National Park because it is quite advanced in this. It has a meitheal operation where local retired people volunteer weekly, if not more often, and help with some rhododendron clearance and keeping the park clean. We have modified that to include foot patrols related to fire vigilance and so on and that is a programme we will grow across the national parks system. As I said in response to Deputy O'Flaherty earlier, we are a rural-based organisation. All of our national parks are rural-based, embedded in community. They need to be part of that community. That pride is evident when visiting Connemara National Park or Mayo and in particular I refer to the work we have done on the Wild Nephin National Park. There is a huge degree of volunteerism there as well. It is just incredible work to see. It is rooted in community and in that partnership and that is hugely important. It is important that the parks and reserves are open and so on.

I will ask my colleagues to come in very briefly on community because there are a number of community initiatives. A number of years ago, before the time of pretty much everyone here with the exception of Dr. Bleasdale, when the first engagement on the raised bogs started, it was a challenging engagement. However, that has moved on, certainly in most raised bogs, to a new arena now in the context of the engagement with the community and the alternative use and value of those bogs in particular. I will ask Ms Carberry to come in on a couple of examples of community engagement.

Most recently, we had an information day on 20 June on our new peatland and Natura community engagement scheme. That scheme has been expanded from just peatlands now to encompass other habitats that are Natura sites.

The day was well attended. The scheme has been running since 2018 and has funded 125 or 126 projects in the country. Wild Atlantic Nature now also has its Natura communities initiative, which is embedded in communities. More than 800 individuals, including farmers, are engaged in there and the Natura communities are going to spread nationwide shortly. Part of Wild Atlantic Nature's ethos is to engage with rural communities, in particular, on the basis that people in rural communities make wise and intelligent choices and want to do the right thing, and we need to make sure we create an environment where people have alternatives and whereby, where they want to work with us and with nature, it will be viable for them to do that. Our experience has certainly been very positive.

I have just got back from Kerry, where I was dealing with our new marine national park. The staff there have since 19 April had 34 meetings in the community, of which four were open to the public. They were very well attended. I just attended the most recent four meetings and did not attend all 34. There is huge appetite in that community. We held the four public meetings on a geographical basis to make sure a range of communities with different experiences had an opportunity to engage with us, and engage they did. We have got some fantastic ideas and fantastic offers of support and engagement there. One of the items of feedback that came through strongly in the public meetings related to how delighted people were to have a face to put to a name and to have a human point of contact in the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Something we have perhaps struggled with is not always being as visible as we could be or not always being as easy to find locally as we could be, so we had our ranger grade there and the district conservation officer at all the meetings, and people there now know who is behind this national park, what we want and what we are saying.

We are improving all the time at community engagement because, at the end of the day, sustainably, it is the only way we will get long-term results, and the only way we will protect nature sustainably in the long term is if the local community is protecting it.

I will come in briefly on the issue of community engagement. We have a strong community engagement programme in Wicklow Mountains National Park. Last year, we had close to 4,000 hours of community work on a peatlands restoration project, including fencing, building timber dams and spreading heather brash and grass seed on top of that. We had huge community engagement there. In all our national parks, we are now tasked under our strategic action plan with being more strategic about this work. Under our strategic action plan, we want to draw up management plans for each of our national parks. Education, the volunteering programme and community engagement will all come under those management plans and we will try to have a more strategic way of managing our engagement programmes and education programmes. As Mr. Ó Donnchú said, we have a strong education programme in a lot of our national parks. We just need to work now to give it a coherent management structure. As he pointed out, we have approval now for a head of education within the national parks system, which will pull our education programme together. It is really important we bring in the schoolkids and have programmes there for them, as we do in a lot of our parks.

The Senator raised a really important topic in the context of the farming question and engagement with farmers and landowners. Ireland is somewhat different from other member states in that in other member states, the state may own the land in vast areas. We need to work with the farming community if we are to win hearts and minds and get that delivery regime implemented at farm and field level. Biodiversity conservation is not an academic exercise. We could hear from hundreds of thousands of scientists, but until we engage with those who own and manage the land, that will be an exercise in futility. We need to engage with farmers, the farming organisations, the Department of agriculture and Teagasc to try to go beyond the pilot project phase and have an almost nationwide delivery of schemes that have biodiversity restoration as a focus, again, not at the exclusion of farming but working with farming to tweak the farming regimes and deliver the projects and processes that support biodiversity conservation.

The way to do that is to have them voluntary, incentivise those schemes and have a knowledge transfer. When I talk about education, which the Senator raised, it is a two-way process, that is, it is not all top down but is working with and learning from the farming community.

We have a lot of really good examples in the Burren and elsewhere in the country, including projects such as those Ms Carberry mentioned. We have delivered a very ambitious CAP strategic plan, with ACRES co-operation projects. We have results-based scoring in up to 25% of the area of the country. Ireland is leading the way, but we need to go beyond that to incentivise it and to use the nature restoration regulation being passed not as a negative but as an opportunity to go beyond what we have been doing today, which is showing the way, and get really ambitious. This is a massive opportunity and we will seek to seize it, but only in working in partnership with those who own the land.

I gave some extended time because it is important and interesting to hear about that community engagement.

I will take the next slot. Having visited NPWS sites recently and met staff, the enthusiasm is very noticeable, as is the fact staff are there at all. I recall being on radio before the 2016 general election, battling to say we needed to address the nature and biodiversity crisis. It was not as topical at that point, but I was battling for it anyway. I was on a programme with a Minister of the day, who said it was the NPWS that looks after nature. I said in response that I thought its funding had been cut by up to 70% over the preceding couple of years, that there was no recruitment or planning for the organisation and that it had been passed from one Department to the other, and I asked how, therefore, we could expect it to be able to do anything. That was only 2016, but the figures the witnesses gave us in their opening statement show the funding has gone from €28.7 million in 2020 to almost €70 million four years later and that the staff recruitment has gone from 350 to 537.

In light of the European nature restoration regulations having been passed and the nature restoration plan we are going to have to put together between now and 2026, backed by that €3.1 billion climate and nature fund; in light of the national biodiversity action plan having been put on a statutory footing, something we had sought for a long time; and in light of everything coming together like that, with the resources and the support, it is right that the National Parks and Wildlife Service is back in the Custom House. What does that do for morale and an organisation and how does it help in that strategic planning? Obviously, it has to give the service a lot of comfort and confidence to say it has this funding in place and that it knows this is the trajectory it is on. Does it help with recruitment or to put all those actions in place?

I recall seeing some of those representations as well. The NPWS is absolutely at a point of inflection. When the review was completed in 2022, we had a certain perspective on what was needed, but that has changed significantly. The nature restoration law absolutely changes the basis on which we will go forward. It ups the ante significantly in respect of the international and legal obligations on us but also in respect of the opportunity, as the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has spoken about. The paradigm through which we engage with nature is changing and has changed, and that is to the credit of committees such as this and certainly to the credit of the Oireachtas, which has given significant time to debate on nature. We have seen that change dramatically. We spend a lot of time here appropriate servicing the democratic process. We did not do so in the past, because there were other priorities.

I cannot comment on the resource challenge, although the Cathaoirleach's numbers are not incorrect, because that would bring me into the political realm.

There was a significant amount of catching up to be done in terms of the financial resource but, above all, in terms of the human resource and the capacity. There is still some work to be done. The organisation that stands still gets passed out. There is absolutely a point of inflection. It has shifted. That is why we have looked forward in the context of the international comparators report, which we will speak to. That takes account of what that growth in ambit challenge will look like. It is challenging; I will not say otherwise. Colleagues are excited by that but are not unaware of the challenge. The financial challenge is always there. The nature of the public financing system is that each year, in the context of the Estimates, you fight for what you can get and then do your best with that. That certainly needs to continue on the growth path it has been on, especially in the context of the increased demands on the National Parks and Wildlife Service, which your colleagues have aired, a Chathaoirligh, the complexity of those challenges, balancing the various views and coming up with the right outcomes for farmers, nature, landowners and society. That is challenging.

Thank you, a Chathaoirligh, for the generosity of your comments about colleagues. We have grown. We have certainly changed our public-facing piece. Being established as an executive agency within a Government Department is hugely helpful in that regard. The recruitment challenge continues. I think we anticipate a further 75 people coming into the organisation this year. The international comparators report points out to us a pathway by comparing us with organisations in similar areas abroad and looking at the demands around a nature restoration law, our regulatory, presentation and conservation functions and our international obligations. There is still a huge amount of work to be done on our Natura sites. They are looking at the organisation potentially doubling in size by 2033. That figure has to be seen in the context of directly managing 150,000 ha of high nature value, the context of the 11 articles of the nature restoration law, which will impact us, and the context of 600 Natura sites, many in need of significant investment on measures. We have an excellent relationship with the Department of public expenditure and reform. It sees significant value in what we are achieving with the resources we have, but we are very conscious that it is a challenging space and we will certainly continue to do our best with what resources we get.

I want to return to the question of the resources and funding provided by the Government. The witnesses say that all restoration measures will be voluntary but that landowners who do participate will be incentivised and resourced. Are the witnesses confident that those incentives and resources provided for the NPWS within its funding are provided by the Government and sufficient to convince the numbers of people needed to participate?

I go back to the stakeholder question. Can the witnesses give an idea of the different types of stakeholders the NPWS intends to involve? The statement mentions only farmers, so I would like to get a broader idea of the different stakeholders, when the stakeholder forum is set up.

Third, we are seeing a rise in climate denial and climate change scepticism. The robust questioning the witnesses have faced here today, which other people have not necessarily faced, shows that there is not automatic acceptance, politically or otherwise, for the restoration of wildlife. Are the witnesses worried about the impact of the climate scepticism we have seen come to the fore in public commentary on the NPWS's work?

That is not referring to the questions today; I am talking more generally. Does the NPWS have any programmes to try to combat that misinformation and disinformation?

Finally, are the witnesses happy with the support the NPWS has received from other agencies? I am talking about local authorities and the OPW, which have large tracts of land. Is the NPWS getting co-operation and support from them in terms of its overall goals? Are the witnesses happy with that or is there anything that can be improved?

Sorry. I misunderstood. We are delighted with that engagement, and it certainly enhances what we do. Anti-science is dangerous, full stop. I will not say any more than that. Scepticism and anti-science just do not serve anybody well. They certainly do not serve society well. I will leave that comment there. Co-operation across the State system is excellent. We have really good relations with the Office of Public Works and hugely positive relations with the local authorities, Inland Fisheries, the Garda, etc. Where we go looking for co-operation, we absolutely get it, and equally with NGOs. The engagement with NGOs is frank but constructive. People are coming from a good place. We understand that and we respect the place people are coming from. None of us respect the anti-science. That is just dangerous.

On my reference to farmers being incentivised and so on, that is a nature restoration law question, so I will ask my colleague Ms Áinle Ní Bhriain to come in on that point. Then, on the engagement piece and the stakeholders, my colleague Mr. Malachy Corcoran will come in, Chair, if that is okay. If I have forgotten anything Senator Moynihan said, I will come back to it.

I thank the Senator for the question. From the very beginning, the Minister has said that this will be voluntary and that nobody will be forced to do anything on their land. The final version of the nature restoration law was signed into law yesterday. It was approved at the European Council last Monday but was physically signed yesterday. As soon as it appears in the Official Journal of the EU in the next few days, that is when the 20-day period starts and our clock starts to have our plan in place in two years. It is interesting that Article 11.4 specifically calls out the following: "The obligation for Member States to meet the rewetting targets ... does not imply an obligation for farmers and private landowners to rewet their land". I scribbled that down before I came in. This will therefore be absolutely voluntary. It is important, however, that we try to incentivise people. The law does not absolve people from taking part. It does not exclude landowners or farmers from taking part in the restoration of peatland and the rewetting of farmland if they so choose to do.

The regulation also includes this statement: "Member States shall, as appropriate, incentivise rewetting to make it an attractive option for farmers and private landowners and foster access to training and advice for farmers and other stakeholders on the benefits of rewetting peatland". That in itself is a whole chunk of work we will have to do, looking at what the best way to restore land is, what we mean by rewetting and how we can devise programmes, measures and actions that are sustainable and in which farmers can positively engage while at the same time continuing to farm the land.

I do not want to get caught up on rewetting because it seems to be the topic du jour whenever we mention the nature restoration law, but the definition of rewetting within the article is a process of moving from a drained peatland towards a wet soil. That in itself gives us, the member state, Ireland, the flexibility to determine for ourselves what we mean by rewetting. It also allows, within the confines of our plan, for it to mean one thing on an actual farm where the land is being used for agricultural purposes, as distinct from what it means in the commercial peat extraction sites, where we can also carry out rewetting to reach target and so on.

There is a great deal of scope to incentivise the process of rewetting. While it is absolutely voluntary, let us make it something that farmers can embrace.

The Senator wanted to know who the other stakeholders were. There were seven discrete ecosystems called out for measures, some of which have targets and others of which just have to show an increasing trend. In addition to the land piece, there is also the marine piece, with significant restoration to be carried out there. There is an urban piece, where there is a requirement to increase the green space and tree canopy cover in our cities and towns. That will require us to engage with city planners and communities. The Deputy mentioned parks in the urban setting. Nature restoration can work hand in hand with that kind of initiative. Forestry is another area where we have to show an increase in the quality of the forest ecosystem. There is also an ambition to plant 3 billion additional trees across the landmass of the Union. The 25,000 km of free-flowing rivers across the Union will impact on fishers, river users, water supply and wastewater. The re-establishment of things like floodplains and all of that has to be factored in as well.

The Senator asked about financing. We have this statutory fund that will come into place in 2026, which will provide funding for capital projects. However, there is also a need for other funding, for current funding. We will need to look at a whole range of models, be it Government or private funding, and what is available within the capacity of what is already there under the nature banner within the EU. All of that has to be brought into the mix and considered. That is another part of the plan we will be working on in the next two years.

I thank everyone who has come in. The opening statement was very strong. "Many of the key indicators are going in the wrong direction and some of our EU-protected habitats are not in a favourable conservation status. If we do not bring about improvements, we may face further infringement action from the EU and may face heavy fines." We will face infringement action and heavy fines. It is a very serious situation. Is the NPWS confident it is being turned around or is it too soon to say? What exactly is being done to get those EU-protected habitats that are not in favourable conservation status into favourable conservation status?

It is a strong statement. We are turning the ship. If I was here five years ago, I would have said to the Deputy that we had 423 SACs, only a fraction of which were backed by a statutory instrument, only a fraction of which had site-specific conservation objectives, and that we were very sparse in terms of the conservation measures we needed to put in place. There are three things that must be done with an SAC. It needs to be backed by statute so it has the full force of law. It needs to have site-specific conservation objectives with a qualifying interest on that site: what are the objectives? What are the targets? Third, there must be measures to address the threats and pressures on each of those targets.

I will ask my colleague, Ms Carberry, the director with responsibility for nature conservation, to respond to the Deputy. We have had a number of infringements. We have had an ECJ judgment in respect of those SACs. We are currently working with the European Commission to respond to the piece of work that remains outstanding in that regard.

Where we are at in respect of the particular infringement on SAC cases is instructive because it will inform the approach across the gamut of Natura sites. As Mr. Ó Donnchú mentioned, that case went to court and we received a judgment at the end of June 2023. As the Deputy will be aware, once we receive a judgment, we have a very limited period in which to demonstrate that in good faith, as a member state, we are working to resolve the matters identified in the judgment. We are in that period now. We are working very closely with the Commission to resolve the matters around the sites in question to the satisfaction of the Commission and also to our own satisfaction, and that it is doable and realistic.

In respect of the site designations piece and the statutory instruments, we are above 96% of sites that are done now and have published statutory instruments. In respect of site-specific conservation objectives, which were the second pillar of the case, we are at 100%. In respect of conservation measures, they are the actions the State takes to achieve the objectives. We have to set our objectives very clearly and then we have to set about actions to achieve them. That is obviously a really complicated thing to do. Many of our sites are very large. Very long river sites pass through eight, nine or ten counties. There are tens of thousands of landowners on some of our sites. There are multiple qualifying interests at the sites. A qualifying interest is what the site was designated for. We have engaged very positively with the Commission on building a reputation for reliability and credibility. To date, in our response to the judgment, we have done exactly what we said we would do, exactly when we said we would do it. The first two pillars, the statutory instruments and the objectives, are more or less boxed away. We have a bit of credibility there where we did not before in respect of the measures.

We have settled down on four pilot sites with the Commission and we are developing an agreed format for the type of information the Commission needs to be satisfied that Ireland has met its obligations in respect of those four sites. We are right in the middle of that process. We have a further meeting. We have met with the Commission and I have been over in Brussels twice. The Commission has been here and visited one of the sites in April. Speaking to Senator Moynihan's point, we had the CEO of the local authority at that, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the Marine Institute, the Department of agriculture and the Forestry Service. Everybody went together to look at the site. All of those public bodies and public authorities with responsibilities have fed into our records of what is happening at the site.

Previously, the thinking had been about what the National Parks and Wildlife Service was doing about the site but the question is much broader; it is about what Ireland is doing about the site. This is a very new approach to managing Natura sites. It is based on a template the Commission put forward and has been working with us on. It has started directing other member states to come here and look at what we are doing in that pilot. This is the approach the Commission wants at Natura sites. Of course, it is all very well doing this at four sites; the challenging piece is going to be rolling it out across 606 sites. That is the challenge for us coming down the line. When we started to collate the information, we found that there are hundreds of measures in place at those four sites.

I was going to ask that. There was reference to 423 special areas of conservation and 606 sites. The statutory instruments are in place for 96% and site-specific conservation objectives are in place for 100%. There are four pilots. Obviously there are a lot of actions and measures in place in a number of these sites.

You have it for the four sites, but for everywhere else, you do not. How long is it going to take to get that picture together? It will give us an idea of how much further we have to go. That is not to say more cannot be done where measures are in place and being acted on. At least we will know our situation then.

That is a really good point because this is as much a data, information and communication exercise as it is an action exercise. The information we collated at the four sites has led to hundreds of lines of actions. There is nothing in that that is not already in place and moving. Therefore, this is not about what we are going to do but about what has already been carried out and is in force. We are working to a timeline of about two and a half years, or maybe three, and we think we will have it for all of the sites.

If I may come in on that, there are measures. The first measure regarding any designated site concerns interface with the planning system. The second concerns what are called ARCs, which colleagues present absolutely understand. You cannot do any work on a designated site without the consent of the Minister, and that is a protection that goes across the entire set of SACs and SPAs. In some cases, you need the hand-to-nature intervention we engage in – for instance, in relation to the curlew. I acknowledge the co-operation of all the NGOs referred to today in relation to grouse and so on. You need hand-to-nature intervention whereby volunteers and others are on the ground protecting particularly vulnerable species, whether flora or fauna. Dr. Bleasdale will refer to some of the details.

The question was well posed. It is challenging. The results to date, based on our monitoring under the birds and habitats directive, have shown declining trends. I am a scientist and manage a team of scientists and I believe it is fair to say that if my team were charged only with the ongoing reporting of negative trends, we would not be in this job for much longer, because that cannot be an end in itself. It is a call for action. The question for us all concerns what we should do about the negative trends and how to halt the decline and seek to address it.

Ms Carberry has talked about what we need to do. Regarding the hearts and minds issue and the dialogue we have been having on the national biodiversity action plan and its delivery over the past two years, there have been citizens' assemblies on biodiversity loss, both the young people's one and the general one, and there have been joint Oireachtas committee recommendations. A suite of voices across wider society and Departments are seeking action. It cannot depend only on the National Parks and Wildlife Service; it has to involve an all-of-government response. We have been engaging pretty proactively at meetings of the senior officials group and through Cabinet subcommittees, and we have a mandate from the Government to deliver. Therefore, the question for us all now is how we can actually build on the goodwill, energy, enthusiasm and demonstration of good practice in pilot projects to address the challenges, pressures and threats so that the next time we report, the threats and pressures will have diminished and the results will be more positive, giving us the energy and momentum to seek to continue to deliver.

We have all seen supports through the biodiversity working group and the biodiversity forum and stakeholder groups that are being engaged with to build capacity, engagement and the all-of-society response to the biodiversity crisis. It is positive even though the results are currently negative. We are turning the ship around, I believe.

The reason I focused so much on the stakeholder forum in the first round was the very one just outlined, because it is a case of all parties working together, including the agriculture community, those who enjoy the outdoors and country pursuits, and environmental NGOs. All have a role to play in protecting and enhancing our environment. I love the outdoors, was involved in the scouts when I was younger, have hiked all the peaks of Ireland, been to four of the six national parks and have a geography degree, so I am somebody who understands these issues; however, I equally understand that we have to bring people with us. The hearts-and-minds aspect mentioned is probably the most important one because, without the buy-in of all stakeholders, we will not get very far with the work being done.

We can put sanctions in place and use the stick approach but it is always the carrot and working together that bring people along with us. That is why I do not like it when the debate descends into one that requires a one given approach or nothing. Incremental improvements across the board in relevant areas are what will get us to where we need to be. Of course, we would love to go from here to where we want to go but we cannot do so without going up the steps and bringing people along with us. That is the background.

I have a few questions. I am from Waterford and I hold dear the Comeragh Mountains. Waterford has a strong agricultural community, particularly of sheep farmers, and we all know of Comeragh Mountains lamb. One of the bones of contention in the Comeragh Mountains is controlled burning. I refer to "controlled" burning for a reason because it is an integral part of ensuring our upland areas are maintained. The people who know the areas best are those who manage them, and they would say controlled burning brings on an area over time. The science on the burning season, on which I may be corrected if I am wrong, requires no burning from 1 March to 31 August. Could the guests talk to me about that and about controlled burning and its importance? I am not talking about uncontrolled burning because nobody can stand over that. There is a difficulty in that uncontrolled burning can happen in upland areas through no fault of the farmers. Somebody might light a fire to cook and it will take off. We have seen that farmers have been penalised for this, notwithstanding that they had nothing to do with it. Perhaps the guests could comment on that.

Those were really good questions about burning. Mr. Bleasdale is going to take them because there is no simple answer. I have heard him address this. The burning season is open for six months of the year. As an organisation, we are not for an extension of it because it is open for six months of the year. Uncontrolled burning is a genuine challenge. We are always conscious we are a stray cigarette away from devastation. What strikes you when you have been where uncontrolled burning has happened is the silence. It will have devastated everything in its line of fire. I spoke about that point earlier and am glad the Senator acknowledged it.

As I have said at committee meetings before, our first port of call is not the farmer when there is an uncontrolled fire. We have never suggested that. We have seen several examples of what goes on. Thankfully, so far this year we did not have to deal with any horrendous fires in high-nature areas, but we are very conscious of the problem. This is where education is really important. We spoke earlier about education, prevention and early detection and the need to address the issue as quickly as possible.

Controlled burning, as the Senator referred to it, is a complex area. Mr. Bleasdale will address it, if that is okay.

It depends on the motivation of the individual, whether the fire is a wildfire, whether it has been set and whether it is part of a land eligibility issue.

We have worked hard with the Department of agriculture and the European Commission, including DG AGRI and DG ENV, to ensure any land eligibility rules are not predicated on encouraging farmers to take a match-up or to overgraze to be compliant and eligible for payments. Many of the policy disincentives have been removed. There is a tradition and a culture to manage uplands in certain ways. It differs across the country. In some areas, there is a tradition of burning. Any management activity is typically neither good nor bad. It just depends on how it is done, the time of year, the intensity or scale of it and its management.

Ultimately, it should not matter to the NPWS how we get the outcome we require as long as we get there. If we can set conservation objectives for a site and they are delivered through whatever means, be it extensive grazing or other controls, even controlled burning – I am not saying I would be in favour of that – then the NPWS should be happy, as should biodiversity-----

If it does, then we should be happy. This is where the results-based payment schemes come into effect. If we can value the management of the land by virtue of its presentation of biodiversity, it does not matter how we get there. If the farmer gets there through controlled burning or light grazing by llamas, ducks or whatever, who cares as long as we get the habitat and heather in good condition? Rather than trying to create rules and regulations over all of that, let us focus on the outcome and give the farmer the flexibility and tools to achieve that through a variety of ways.

Burning in itself is neither good nor bad. It depends on how it is done and managed. If we get to where we need to be, then I will not have a problem with those means. There could be some climate questions regarding wholesale burning, though, and those might need to be folded into the conversation, so it would not only be an issue of biodiversity.

If the heather has become too leggy and is ungrazeable, then something other than grazing is needed in some cases to get the sheep back onto the hill, provided that is done in a sensitive way, a rotation is planned and it is not just a case of burning vast blocks of the hill without any management and the hill then moving from heather to green grass. It is about a mosaic of habitats that would support grouse and a suite of other upland species. If there is a plan to deliver that, we should not object to it.

If there were a single delivery mechanism that we had total control over and would be managed by the NPWS, then the issue might be easier to broker. We have multiple schemes and projects that all deliver different things. If there were a single system that folded in the requirements of a scheme, the scheme supported biodiversity, the objectives for the site were delivered, no other consents were needed from the NPWS as a third party and sites in upland settings, including the Comeraghs, were managed in an holistic way that delivered the outcomes we required across various schemes, then I would be happy. That does not answer the Senator’s question-----

I believe the thinking behind the Wild Atlantic Nature project and results-based scoring, which has also migrated into ACRES, is for that model to be regularised and delivered. We are not there yet and it might take years for us to deliver it nationwide, but we are on that road. If the score for and management of a site are positive regardless of how the farmer got there, for example, through controlled and sensitive burning, then that might be the way to get there, but I cannot give the Senator the roadmap to achieve that outcome immediately.

I appreciate the Senator’s questions. Each site is unique in its characteristics, although the Senator is speaking in general terms. Burning is not allowed for six months of the year so as to protect ground-nesting birds. This is one of the variables in any consideration. The characteristics of each site are different. We find that with the hydrology of raised bogs as well. If someone asks us how long it will take to restore a bog, the answer will differ from site to site. It is a challenging question because of the variability of sites and so forth. Sites are probably best addressed one by one. A farmer for whom any question like that arose would talk to his or her farm adviser in the first instance, but also to our local team – our rangers, DCOs, etc. The objective is to work with the farmer. The Senator understands that burning is illegal anywhere-----

I will make a point of clarification before asking dhá cheist. I appreciate and empathise with the work the NPWS is doing. I see it at first hand on a local project.

The Chair will agree that, the longer we stay in this job, the more cynical and sceptical we tend to get, so the witnesses will understand I am framing my question’s wording from that stance. I ask them to put themselves in the shoes of NARGC members. Our understanding is that a stakeholder forum will not be set up until quarter four of 2024 or quarter 1 of 2025. That is fine, but we hear that a meeting has already taken place with the CEOs of the environmental NGOs. This causes a degree of scepticism, especially in an era when there should be a collective input from all parties. A degree of damage has been done to the process. I suggest that a meeting similar to the one held for the environmentalist groups be convened for the NARGC, its affiliated groups and anyone else it deems necessary. In advance of that, the NPWS should share with the NARGC the minutes of the meeting that took place. It is important this committee sees those minutes as well and that there be another meeting. We will then all go into quarter 4 of this year or quarter 1 of 2025 brimming with confidence and knowing we are on an equal footing.

That is a reasonable request. If I recall correctly, the purpose of the meeting with the three or four CEOs involved was to brief them on where the NPWS review stood as regards the 45 actions and on the content of the strategic action plan. We have no problem with sharing the minutes of that meeting and I have no problem at all with sitting down with the NARGC and any of its groups, going through where we are at with the action plan – it will be more up to date now, as we are a year on – and taking them through the statement of strategy. I would be delighted to do that.

Good. I am satisfied with that response.

I listened with interest to the comments about how important it was that everyone in our communities be involved, including farmers. I am particularly interested in Dr. Bleasdale’s work and I applaud his efforts to date. We do not have a Conor Pass in Longford, but we do have an Inchcleraun, an historic island in the middle of Lough Ree.

Some of the witnesses may be familiar with it. It is a monastic settlement dating back to 560 AD. Queen Medb was killed there. It is disputed whether she was hit with a stone or a piece of cheese. I think it is safe to say it was a stone thrown from the Elfeet side of the lake.

There are two landowners on the island. Herbert Farrell is one; the other lives in the UK. Herbert Farrell has done a very ambitious farm plan. I would have told him he is stone mad to have done it because he has to engage with the NPWS, the Department of agriculture, Waterways Ireland, the National Monuments Service and the OPW. It is a bit like west Belfast in the 1970s. He is dealing with an awful lot of agencies there. I have to acknowledge the work and efforts of the Minister of State, Malcolm Noonan, and his officials, who worked with Herbert Farrell to the point that he has a successful farm plan in place. However, he is not able to advance it beyond where he is at the moment. He has not been able to access any of his payments, and it seems to be at a point where he cannot do anything on his piece of ground without engaging the services of an archaeologist, which is obviously very expensive. Yet in recent weeks the OPW has been able to come onto the island and move stones, which Herbert Farrell would not have been able to do on his land without an archaeologist. Also, our local wildlife ranger has worked very closely with him on this project and has been hugely supportive, but I need someone with significant muscle within the NPWS to meet with this farmer and help him engage with this multi-agnecy crew with which he is confronted. I hope Dr. Bleasdale might be able to undertake to meet with the farmer or give me a point of contact who will discuss it with him and try to help him through this myriad of issues he has to deal with. It is a very wholesome project and it would be great to see it. The island is in a state of distress. The farmer wants to return it to organic farming. It is also one of, I think, only two locations where we have an indigenous Lough Ree goat herd still in its wild environs, so it is important we protect it.

I have a couple of final questions on which I wish to get the views and opinions of the witnesses. Earlier, we spoke about the planning system and the interaction it has with the protection of nature. We are doing a planning Bill at the moment. The witnesses will be aware of that. While there was not a lot of mention of biodiversity and nature protection in the planning Bill when the first draft came out in January 2023, they have been integrated into it. Subsequently, the national biodiversity action plan was issued on a statutory footing. We now have sections in the planning Bill under the national planning framework, the national planning statement and the regional spatial strategies about the pursuit, achievement and integration of the national biodiversity action into the various subsidiary plans as well as the preservation and protection of the environment and the integration of the national biodiversity action plan.

In the witnesses' view, in the context of nature protection and the work the National Parks and Wildlife Service does, what is the impact of having the biodiversity action plan on a statutory footing and stated in primary legislation?

It is an absolute game-changer. Colleagues will have referenced this in pretty much every response we have given. Walking nature across a nature protection process and across a full spectrum of relevant legislation and actions by State agencies and so forth is hugely important. Having a statutory imperative is massive for us in our co-ordination job on the national biodiversity action plan, even in terms of the huge engagement in drafting that plan, in the first instance, both within Government across those agencies and outside it, with the stakeholder community and so forth. It is an absolute game-changer for us. That read-across is just hugely important.

It is important there is consistency, from the highest level of planning right down to the local urban area plans. I was glad Ms Ní Bhriain mentioned there are several other pillars to the nature restoration law. The entire focus seems to have been about farmland, wetland and peatland but there is everything from the marine and the aquatic to our urban environments as well. It is important to state that.

There was discussion way back about the creation of a wildlife crime prevention unit or a wildlife crime unit. That changed to a memorandum of understanding, working with An Garda Síochána and various agencies. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has had some great successes in prosecuting wildlife crimes recently. What actions have been taken in this regard and what progress has been made in that area?

There was discussion. Everyone in the National Parks and Wildlife Service deals with wildlife crime. I remember walking the committee through the anatomy of a crime once it has been committed and through the investigative process and all of that. I am not going to do that today. We have a directorate now with responsibility for wildlife enforcement and nature protection. I would take a directorate over a unit any day because that absolutely strengthens it.

To rehearse some of the issues, preventing and disrupting wildlife crime activities require a multifaceted approach nationally. That is why we have a memorandum of understanding with the Garda. It is why we are investing so much in training and putting an emphasis on boots on the ground, from ranger colleagues and district conservation officers, DCOs, to regional and divisional managers. We have changed the entire regional structure of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to create nine new regions. That has been followed through with nine divisional managers and an increased number of regional managers and DCOs, all the way down to boots on the ground. The target is to have 120 rangers in place by the end of this year. As recently as 2020, the number of rangers we had on the ground was, I understand, between 60 and 70. The projection I talked about in the context of the international comparators report sees a continuation of that growth trajectory.

As for the metrics around this, in 2023, there were 43 prosecution cases sent to the Chief State Solicitor's office for breaches of wildlife legislation, of which 15 are still open. In 2023, 24 prosecution cases were closed. To date in 2024, nine prosecutions have been sent to the Chief State Solicitor's office. We usually see more cases sent in quarter 3 than in the earlier part of the year. So far this year, 18 prosecution cases have been closed. Those numbers compare very well with other agencies. We finally have the numbers for other agencies. These are only the prosecution cases; they do not take account for the number of files that may be open at any particular point in time, some of which are solved by local intervention that does not take up the time of the court. That is hugely important.

Colleagues spoke to that engagement with communities and people and the education and prevention piece. Where we can make that kind of intervention, we will make it.

We benefit hugely from interagency co-operation through An Garda Síochána. We held a joint protocol workshop recently in Templemore, which was well received in the senior ranks of the Garda. We co-operate with the IFI, EPA and other organisations such as the Regional Veterinary Laboratory, State Laboratory, Revenue, Customs and ISPCA and they co-operate with us.

We are seeing a sea change in the application of the law. We have a very high success rate in the prosecution of wildlife crimes. Some 91% of the 169 cases, with 284 defendants, were successful in the period 2019-23. That bears repeating. Something I have probably not said enough about today is the quality of our colleagues, the way they conduct their investigations and the rigour with which they pursue their investigations in adhering to all of the evidential chain protocols and so on. They are not simple cases to prosecute. Very often, the crime that is committed is egregious and stomach churning. The 91% success rate is huge. Some 70% of those cases have resulted in a fine or conviction. The other 30% have resulted in a donation directed by the court or the application of the Probation Act. Prosecutions taken by other enforcement agencies, such as IFI or An Garda Síochána, supplement our wildlife crime figures. There are other agencies and a massive level of co-operation between us and them and vice versa.

An often unseen huge effort by NPWS is the number of hours spent patrolling, monitoring and responding to reports, investigating and engaging with stakeholders and preventing and deterring crimes. We try to capture as much of that data as we can. I hope some helpful statistics-----

The eye in the sky, such as helicopters, fire monitoring and voluntary teams all help. In a number of instances, our patrols discovered people in the act of lighting a fire and have stopped that there and then. That kind of preventative work, presence in the community and visibility are hugely important.

We discussed farm plans. I visited a site in Magheramore, south Wicklow recently. It is an SAC area and the farmer could not have been more complimentary about the work being done with the NPWS in terms of assistance and guidance. I am not from a farming background, but it seems to be a very successful combination of nature and farming. When the NPWS works with farmers on farm plans and gives advice, what is the success rate? Deputy Flaherty said the process was complex and many things had to be done. Does the NPWS find that many farmers stick with it and find it was not as complex as they thought it would be? Is there a dropout rate? How does the NPWS measure how good its interactions or farm plans are?

Bespoke farm plans are not for everybody. Some prefer more broad scale national schemes. Our scheme is quite small in scale and is bespoke and tailored not just to the needs of the NPWS or biodiversity, but also the needs of the farmer. In brokering a discussion, in some cases the farmer becomes highly enthused by the plan and commits to it not just for one cycle but for multiple cycles. We have farmers who are going into their third generation of plans.

Others are not as enamoured by the process and find it a bit slow, tedious and cumbersome. We are trying to streamline our processes and make them more intuitive. The failing that all schemes make is ultimately that they become administrative. We search terms, conditions and rules and penalties and sanctions are applied. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves of the motivation of the scheme in the first place and what it seeks to do and change.

In simple terms, it seeks to work with farmers who want to farm for nature and to reward them accordingly. If we can work that detail out, everything else is flotsam and jetsam in the process. We should not make the process so cumbersome that farmers lose interest in it or it becomes too bureaucratic for them to get their payments. We are trying to find the sweet spot and are not quite there yet. We do not seek to replicate national schemes; rather, we seek to inform how national schemes might be designed so that the learnings of our interactions with farmers at small scale can inform the roll-out of national schemes like ACRES and co-operation projects. I hope that answers the question.

I will come in very briefly on LIFE sites. Ms Carberry will provide detail. One of the challenges around LIFE is that the programmes tend to expire. They are five or six-year programmes. The key decision we have made is that if these interventions are working then LIFE is for life, not to be hackneyed about it. We have mainstreamed those programmes that are coming to an end, if and when they are working. By and large, they are working. The LIFE intervention on raised bogs, for example, was superb. The LIFE intervention on the corncrake is working and we are seeing the numbers increase. Above all, we are hearing the corncrake. Those programmes are now being mainstreamed into the NPWS so that farmers have certainty that where they have made a successful intervention in respect of nature, that will continue. They are being remunerated for that. The range of payments in respect of the corncrake LIFE programme is from €300 to about €11,000, with an average payment of about €3,000. Farmers recognise that if they are farming for nature they will be remunerated for that service and we will mainstream the scheme if it is working.

Approximately 150 farmers are involved in the corncrake LIFE programme. We have found that being clear about what we are looking for in the scheme is key and we need to be clear about what the farmer is measuring. We can say it is operating on a no-surprises basis. Farmers know exactly what is involved. They have their scorecards and can measure things. Most importantly, they can show their colleagues and neighbours exactly how it works. They know how to get from A to B and what a results base looks like.

There are similar numbers involved in the LIFE on Machair programme. Again, farmers bring other farmers in and the word will spread. It goes back to what Dr. Bleasdale said. We need to make it make sense for farmers. Over-regulation and overburdening people with paperwork is not something we have found to be successful. We have to absorb some of the lessons from the Wild Atlantic Nature programme, which are really clear. We need to have boots on the ground and people out and engaging with farmers.

Making that work is quite resource-heavy for us. That is why the LIFE programme in such a support. Again, we will integrate those schemes. The development of the LIFE project, which Dr. Bleasdale was very involved in, informed the whole approach to results-based payments down the line. We want to pilot things in those projects that we will roll out nationally. There is huge evidence of successful pilot interventions, in particular from Wild Atlantic Nature, which received a significant European award recently. It engages with communities all over the place.

It takes people more than paper to do this. There can be a temptation for professional bureaucratic organisations to generate quite a lot of paperwork when they do not have enough people for safety. People on the ground and the visibility piece are extraordinarily effective. Our experience is that the goodwill is there if we make things possible for people.

I know from engaging with farmers that, like any other business, they need certainty into the future. They cannot be told not to be produce milk and to then produce loads of milk. They have been led from one side of the road to the other a lot of the time. Are some of the plans short-term in duration?

The LIFE programmes tend to be. The longest one, in my experience, has been the SNAP one to which we referred earlier. That is a nine-year programme. The living bog programme was maybe a five-year one. The corncrake programme was a five-year one. The Wild Atlantic Nature project is a seven-year one.

The Chair is absolutely right. I come from a farming background so I am fully appreciative of the view that the market sends a signal. It sends a signal about milk or on headage or sheep. That is what it tended to do. We need to make sure the signal coming on nature is constant and consistent. That is the message we are about. This will not stop; it will be a constant. We recognise that there is an investment of time, effort and resource by the landowner and, like any resource, it is producing a good. If that good is a nature service, we need to be in the space that rewards the production of that nature service, plain and simple. The Chair is right that we need to be giving the farmers and landowners producing those services certainty that we will be there next year, the year after and the year after that. Nature does not stop. The seasons do not stop changing. In the context of where we are as regards those really important annexed habitats, the need to continue to nurture and protect will continue to exist. That is why the nature restoration law is a 2050 programme.

I agree with Mr. Ó Donnchú. Any effort requires reward. Just because you have restored land and have the corncrake back does not mean you can turn your back on them. Why would you? It is not for the good of your health.

This is my last question, Mr. Ó Donnchú will be happy to hear. Many years ago, when I was studying environmental matters, the key issues on nature and environment were pollution, invasive species, habitat fragmentation and climate change. Which ones are we winning the battle on and which ones are we still losing the battles on? What are the success stories at the moment? Are they still the key impacts on our wildlife and nature?

It is unremitting. There is a constant challenge in all those spaces. Speaking for ourselves, in terms of our area of responsibility around nature and everything impacting it, pollution is a major problem for us in the uplands. The committee will be aware of the leave no trace campaign. That has been hugely successful in terms of the engagement with it.

If I may look at two things across boundaries, what we do is inextricably linked to climate change and climate adaptation and vice versa. There is absolutely no doubt about that. We can certainly point to success stories, but there are the ongoing challenges of education, protection and dealing with invasive species. There is one particular one we are addressing, the rhododendron. We have cleared the guts of probably 2,000 ha of rhododendron in Glenveagh and Killarney in the past three years, which is remarkable. We are going at it very hard. However, that is something we need to revisit again and again because it resurges.

The message from us is that the challenge of nature protection is a 24-7 one. We have an awful long way to go but, to borrow Dr. Bleasdale's phrase or maybe one of the questions earlier, are we turning the ship in terms of societal engagement with nature restoration and nature protection? Absolutely. Is there an engagement with climate action and climate adaptation? For sure, and with pollution. I think people are much more aware of the impacts these have and how they reinforce one another with negative outcomes for society, very negative outcomes in some instances. It is a work in progress.

On that note, I urge the NPWS to keep up the work it is doing. Anybody who spends a day in nature reaps the reward for a long time. You can spend a day in the city or spend a night out.

There is a reward when you spend a day out in countryside or out in nature with your family or children, and it is often free. When you damage it and it is gone, you do not realise it until it is gone. I could quote the lyrics from a song, which most people do at this point, but they are true - "Once it is gone, it is gone".

I thank the witnesses for the work they have been doing. I hope this type of support and investment into the National Parks and Wildlife Service continues. As we said, it cannot be a five-year window. It needs to be the next five, ten and 20 years, and that is a challenge. We talk about climate as being the challenge of the decade but biodiversity and nature loss is a challenge that does not get the spotlight or the same degree of recognition as climate change, yet it may cause much more harm and damage much quicker than climate change.

I thank the witnesses for their attendance, and I thank all the National Parks and Wildlife Service staff on the ground as well. As I said, it is great to see NPWS staff out there. Spotting a ranger used to be like trying to spot a corncrake but you have more chances of spotting one now. Corncrakes are coming back too.