Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To facilitate members who want to come back in, I do not mind if witnesses want to give written answers to the questions I have. They might take note of my questions and send in written submissions. Those submissions will form part of the different work we are involved in.

What we have done to biodiversity and nature across the world and in this country is shameful. When I say "we" I mean us as humans. It is clearly largely due to human activity and we have to acknowledge, accept and address that.

Dr. Lysaght mentioned that 20% of all Irish species are threatened with extinction and 63% of bird species are a conservation concern. These are species we are all familiar with. We all know the kestrel that hovers over the roadsides hunting. To think that will be a thing of the past is frightening. Another great example of a bird species is the puffin. We use it on our postcards and literature and it is an iconic bird that breeds off the coast of Ireland. To think that is something that would be consigned to history is scary.

That is the reality and we needed to hear that bleak truth but there are positives to be taken from today's meeting. It is incredible that we have a like-minded committee, whose members all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet and who want to take action and do something. That is positive. The other positive that has already been touched on is that because of lockdown and the pandemic people have been getting in touch with nature. That has led to the outrage we saw over the wildfires in Killarney and the persecution of birds of prey. That public outrage is something we were not seeing before and we are seeing now. That is evidence to me that change is happening. There is the odd positive in the area of climate change if we look at it. We have had more regular occurrences of humpback whales off the Irish coast. There is no doubt about that. Only five years ago, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, IWDG, catalogue was at 33 animals and that is well over 100 now so that is something we could look at. Little egrets have colonised large parts of Ireland since the 1970s. There is something to grasp onto there.

I want to ask Professor Stout about the ecosystems, biodiversity and the potential socioeconomic benefits. We mentioned the crane breeding in the boglands, the white-tailed eagle in Glengarriff that has attracted numbers and whale watching. Could Professor Stout come back to me on that? It is something we can feed into with the different projects we are involved in.