Ms Oonagh Duggan:

On the first part of the Senator's question on who is listening, the people are listening. If we look at our members, our branches and the wider community, people are listening, they are seeing what is happening to the natural environment and they are concerned.

If the Senator recalls, we worked on a campaign against the Heritage Bill 2016 for a couple of years and 35,000 people signed a petition saying "No" to that legislation. This was before the green wave started and to me, that was an indication that there was a group of people out there who are really concerned about the environment. Those people are tapping into the likes of BirdWatch Ireland and other environmental non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and seeing what we are doing. They are the people who are really listening. More and more, information is being fed up through the political system and politicians are hearing on their doorsteps more that nature is important to the people. We have seen that with the declaration of the climate emergency in the Dáil on 9 May. While it could be seen by some that it is easy to just say this and it might be asked what will happen next, it is an important acknowledgement of where we are and it is something for us to build on and to keep bringing back to the Oireachtas committees and in our other representations.

I was disappointed that part of the declaration of the emergency was the call for the Citizens' Assembly to address the issue of biodiversity loss. That was not taken up in the round of citizens' assemblies that was announced by the Government about two weeks ago.

That was disappointing to say the least. We have written to the Taoiseach and others to remind them that they have said in the Dáil that this is going to happen but it is not on the list, and to ask them when it will happen.

We hope to see that happen because it is very important to channel this insight and the care that many people in Ireland have for the natural environment into a conversation that would put some structure on how Government responds. The Senator is right that BirdWatch Ireland should be speaking at more committee meetings. It has to seep into everybody's conversation. The convoluted sentence about policy coherence the Senator mentioned means that we could convey that when new buildings are being built, there would be swift blocks. Birds use buildings and we need to think about how we can get swift bricks into new buildings. We need to think about the impact it will have if a building is planned to go beside the special protection area for birds and that it may not be a great idea. It is to have a thinking process before the planning process. That could expand into agriculture and other areas.

There are people listening and the Government is starting to listen. There have been significant efforts to help with biodiversity loss; just not enough. The problem is that sometimes the left hand is doing one thing and the right hand does not know what is going on and there is policy incoherence.