Mr. Pádraic Fogarty:

I thank Senator Boylan for her questions. The Arterial Drainage Act 1945 was put in place in order to reclaim farmland from river floodplains and that function of the Act has not changed since. Some 11,500 km of rivers are routinely altered and have their trees and vegetation removed, regardless of whether there is any need for that. This is an enormous undertaking by the Office of Public Works, OPW, at huge public expense for no good reason any more, other than to maintain that farmland. This activity is exacerbating flooding problems downstream in towns and villages and impeding the ability of the landscape to adapt to extreme weather events. That is one of the main problems with the Arterial Drainage Act 1945.

The other problem, as the Senator pointed out, is that the Act does not recognise the importance of nature-based solutions to flooding. Much of what we have done to the land in the past 50 years has served to exacerbate flooding. I refer to compacting soils, draining land and bogs and making sure that water travels as fast as possible from any given location. That contributes to flooding throughout entire catchment areas. The corollary of that, of course, is that blocking drains and re-establishing native woodlands and regenerative farming systems would increase the ability of the land to absorb water and take the peaks and troughs out of flooding. That aspect is also not recognised in the Arterial Drainage Act 1945. Those are the two main issues I see in that regard.

Turning to Killarney National Park, it was devastating to see the damage done. Fires occur in the park nearly every year, but this was a particularly large one. Hundreds of fires occur all over our country during the bird nesting season and that results in enormous damage. As the Senator pointed out, however, the footage from Killarney National Park showed that where we have our native woodland intact, it is not flammable. It did not burn, so this is telling us that the land wants to be a native woodland and we must restore our native woodlands across our hillsides. That is possible, but it will require a lot of work. We have rhododendrons, as the Senator mentioned, and we also have a possible overpopulation of deer that may prevent the regeneration of the oak woodlands.

These are certainly things we can do if we have the right vision in place and the right incentives for landowners. Recreating beautiful oak forests could be an amazing national project. Indeed, it could be an all-island project that we could all get behind. It would be an amazing legacy to leave for the next generation.