Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for the information they have provided today. Their statements have been very engaging. I will start with Dr. Lysaght. He provided statistics regarding impacts on biodiversity and the loss of biodiversity. I note that, in his opening statement, he included statistics regarding decreases in the numbers of fish and birds. If he has any further information in that regard, I ask him to forward it to the committee after today's meeting. I am sure it would be of great interest to members.

I represent an urban area in south Dublin and I homed in on an issue Professor Stout raised. She mentioned street trees and other green spaces being encouraged in urban areas. Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is one of the local authorities in the country that has a biodiversity officer, which it has had for quite some time now. That is probably one of the reasons it was one of the first councils to have a pollination plan. It is very important that we see more biodiversity officers at a local level. With regard to Professor Stout's vision of more trees and open spaces being retrofitted into the urban landscape, will she elaborate further as to how she sees this being done? Would it be through the development plan process, local area plans or some other method? How would it be achieved?

Mr. Fogarty mentioned the climate and biodiversity crisis and highlighted the issue of untreated sewage in our rivers, lakes and streams. I have previously raised issues regarding the misconnections that frequently occur. Is Mr. Fogarty of the view that the waste polluting our waters primarily derives from agriculture or is part of it residential, industrial or commercial? I am not saying that it is only a matter of misconnections. Some of this issue is the result of run-off from land use. Does Mr. Fogarty know the percentage that arises from misconnections or does he have any detail as to the number of these misconnections that are impacting on our biodiversity? With regard to the biodiversity Act Mr. Fogarty mentioned, if such an Act were to be introduced, who would he see policing it and how?