Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

On conservation, I am surprised the Minister would not accept that and I do not really get the point about where does it end. There has been a step change in the recognition that it is not just about preventing the further destruction of biodiversity and the environment, but that we have to proactively restore nature. Young people get that very strongly. We should be proactive in putting it in the Bill to create that sort of imperative. I am surprised, in a way. On one level, the Minister might say it is just a word, but it is actually about getting it in here, in the same way that climate change has become a thing that people acknowledge. Now, we have to push on and say it is not just about climate change but also about biodiversity, which is every bit as important. It is not just following the logic of that same kind of thinking and not just about conserving and preventing further destruction of the environment, but about restoring and having natural regeneration of our environment. It is a good idea.

As a concrete example, a friend of mine has just passed away tragically. Approximately 15 years ago, he was giving out to me about the cutting of the grass and hedgerows on his estate, which is a council estate in Shankill, saying this was absolutely destroying the birds and the bees. He was a person who looked after birds and all of that kind of thing; he was mad into nature. He said that what we needed were urban meadows. Up until then, I had never heard of them and I recall going to the council and saying that a friend of mine was talking about urban meadows and asking whether there any chance we would try them. It was like I had two heads. They did not know what I was talking about and, frankly, I did not know what I was talking about, but he did.

The thing about it is that urban meadows are now everywhere. They have become mainstream but it has taken 15 years, whereas some people were way ahead of the game in saying this is the way we needed to go. There has been an absolute step change and we need to codify that in the legislation. It would be very reasonable to put it in.