Mr. Niall ? Donnch?:

We are here to engage on the national biodiversity action plan and the power of work put in by the citizens' assembly regarding biodiversity. Our staffing has grown by 35% and our funding has doubled since 2020. The NPWS is back to 2008 levels of funding. There are almost two decades of added responsibility. Particularly on the international compliance side, we have a significantly bigger network of designated land to manage. We are in the teeth of a biodiversity crisis. We are the first generation of NPWS officials to know that and we are the last generation that can do anything about it. Those kind of facts bring you to your senses very quickly.

On the kind of growth trajectory we are looking at, the nature restoration regulation is coming at us. It was agreed at trilogue last week. We have been in the vanguard of presenting Ireland's position on that and negotiating the outcomes. This is the Natura directives 2.0. There is no other way to put that. This is a very serious intervention by the EU and member states in the context of addressing the biodiversity crisis. That needs to be resourced. We are engaged with our parent Department and with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, and across government on what that means. We have undertaken an international comparators report in the context of the kind of scale of staffing that we need to address our current obligations, the obligations that are coming at us in the context of nature restoration law and the uptick that is needed on how we are doing as regards habitats and species.

I am not in a position to tell the Deputy what those numbers are at present because they are confidential.

Suffice to say, the trajectory of growth in numbers and resources we have seen over the last number of years needs to be maintained over the next ten years if we are to be in a position to respond to those challenges.