Dr. Deirdre Lynn:

The Deputy's last question is very important. I do not know if she has seen any of the articles. An excellent article was recently written by Dr. Noeleen Smyth who used to work in the National Botanic Gardens and is now an associate professor of horticulture in UCD. I share her views. One's back garden is one's own. One should absolutely be able to plant whatever one likes there. There is no problem with some urban areas and some communities having a nice floral display, perhaps of seed mix. It is the messaging in terms of whether it is said to be pro-biodiversity. In some of those cases, it is not really the best thing for biodiversity. Many of them are not considered to be from native seed sources. The best thing for biodiversity is to reduce mowing and cut late in the season to allow flowers to flower, seed and increase diversity and to provide a food source for pollinators throughout the season; one with which these pollinators have evolved. I love dandelions, which are absolutely beautiful, and regular lawn mixes of daisies, buttercups, dandelions and clover. It is amazing that one sees many people on Twitter now saying they have left an area for a couple of years and showing what is coming up now. The amount of diversity that can come through those small grassy areas within a few years is remarkable and a real joy to see. It depends. I advise caution but one does not want to get totally preachy about it and say "absolutely not" to all seed mixes, in all cases. People have a right to do what they want in their own gardens. As far as I am aware, we have not undertaken any studies on the content of these seed mixes. Dr. Smyth may have started on some of that, but I am not entirely sure.

With regard to the current structures within NPWS and whether we can work effectively across Departments, from my own experience it has been very challenging. My original role had been monitoring and reporting. We were reporting back to the EU. We were commissioning many surveys and coming up with trends of status. One layers on top of that to link in within the climate, restoration, international and EU agendas. It can be very challenging and it is really heartening to see that has been recognised and that we are getting the injection of staff to at least get us back to 2008 levels and then, with further injections in the years to come.

When we start rebuilding, we will, I hope, be a louder and more informed voice. The agenda is very big. When one is trying to get one's head around all of the EU regulations and the financial implications, one has to put the time and effort into research and review as well. It would be great to be able to focus back in on that. I have come from the scientific unit and the idea is that we will be allowed to breathe more and get back into the science and research, in order that we can have a very good understanding and be able to come to fora such as this to give our expert opinion.