Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. For our guests' benefit, I will summarise some of the questions asked and the areas mentioned. I do not expect our guests to address them all but if there are any of particular interest to any of our guests, I ask them to indicate and they can speak to it. Senator Higgins talked about the importance of enforcement and the interesting area of the mining of precious materials. She said that while we need to do a certain amount of it, we also need to be recycling those that have already been mined. She also talked about changing our current practices in our own lives. She mentioned our diets. She also mentioned the global piece. It is not just about what is happening in our own communities; there is also a huge global piece, if our guests having anything to say about that. On a more local level, there is the issue for some of our guests of the challenge of biodiversity loss in urban areas. Senator Higgins also mentioned the idea of establishing a network of wildlife corridors. She asked how our guests came up with that idea and asked them to say more about it.

Senator Boylan talked about education.

How do we ensure every young person gets up close and personal with nature? We do not all live in the countryside.

There was a critical question from Senator Boylan about the rights of nature. Should we be looking to enshrine the rights of nature in our Constitution? She also mentioned a wildlife crime unit. That has been talked about quite a lot. Have the witnesses anything to say on that?

Deputy O’Sullivan wants to know what the witnesses learned from their trips to Wicklow and Killarney. What was alarming and what was positive? Do they have anything to say on specific species, endangered species decline and so on? What do they think of Malcolm Noonan?