Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I was very interested in BirdWatch Ireland's presentation with regard to the curlew, with which we are all so familiar. I was disappointed to hear it is threatened here and globally. I understood we have a migratory species of curlew and our own indigenous species. Could I have some details on this? What are the numbers? What is the underlying cause of the decline? Could I have similar statistics on the yellowhammer, just to have specific details? Could I have numbers and BirdWatch Ireland's reason it is now on the red list?

I have a brief comment to make to the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. What was said yesterday by Commissioner Hogan at the Food Wise Conference is really significant because there is an increasing realisation that Irish agriculture and environmental interests will have to come together and that the future funding of Irish agriculture will require a lower-emissions, biodiversity-rich form of land and water management that will require a complete transformation of our whole land use strategy. It will result in considerable potential for Irish farming if the protection of biodiversity is taken into account. We have to get the contractors to work around the birds' timetable; we cannot talk to the yellowhammer and ask it to change its fledging time. This is an important philosophical and material issue. Should contractors bend to nature or should nature get chopped off? Surely Irish agricultural interests will sit down with the environmental movement and start realising that future CAP payments will depend on us getting this right. Farmers will prosper better by working with nature and the environmental movements rather than doing things on the basis of contractors' availability.