Mr. Niall Ó Donnchú:

There was discussion. Everyone in the National Parks and Wildlife Service deals with wildlife crime. I remember walking the committee through the anatomy of a crime once it has been committed and through the investigative process and all of that. I am not going to do that today. We have a directorate now with responsibility for wildlife enforcement and nature protection. I would take a directorate over a unit any day because that absolutely strengthens it.

To rehearse some of the issues, preventing and disrupting wildlife crime activities require a multifaceted approach nationally. That is why we have a memorandum of understanding with the Garda. It is why we are investing so much in training and putting an emphasis on boots on the ground, from ranger colleagues and district conservation officers, DCOs, to regional and divisional managers. We have changed the entire regional structure of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to create nine new regions. That has been followed through with nine divisional managers and an increased number of regional managers and DCOs, all the way down to boots on the ground. The target is to have 120 rangers in place by the end of this year. As recently as 2020, the number of rangers we had on the ground was, I understand, between 60 and 70. The projection I talked about in the context of the international comparators report sees a continuation of that growth trajectory.

As for the metrics around this, in 2023, there were 43 prosecution cases sent to the Chief State Solicitor's office for breaches of wildlife legislation, of which 15 are still open. In 2023, 24 prosecution cases were closed. To date in 2024, nine prosecutions have been sent to the Chief State Solicitor's office. We usually see more cases sent in quarter 3 than in the earlier part of the year. So far this year, 18 prosecution cases have been closed. Those numbers compare very well with other agencies. We finally have the numbers for other agencies. These are only the prosecution cases; they do not take account for the number of files that may be open at any particular point in time, some of which are solved by local intervention that does not take up the time of the court. That is hugely important.

Colleagues spoke to that engagement with communities and people and the education and prevention piece. Where we can make that kind of intervention, we will make it.

We benefit hugely from interagency co-operation through An Garda Síochána. We held a joint protocol workshop recently in Templemore, which was well received in the senior ranks of the Garda. We co-operate with the IFI, EPA and other organisations such as the Regional Veterinary Laboratory, State Laboratory, Revenue, Customs and ISPCA and they co-operate with us.

We are seeing a sea change in the application of the law. We have a very high success rate in the prosecution of wildlife crimes. Some 91% of the 169 cases, with 284 defendants, were successful in the period 2019-23. That bears repeating. Something I have probably not said enough about today is the quality of our colleagues, the way they conduct their investigations and the rigour with which they pursue their investigations in adhering to all of the evidential chain protocols and so on. They are not simple cases to prosecute. Very often, the crime that is committed is egregious and stomach churning. The 91% success rate is huge. Some 70% of those cases have resulted in a fine or conviction. The other 30% have resulted in a donation directed by the court or the application of the Probation Act. Prosecutions taken by other enforcement agencies, such as IFI or An Garda Síochána, supplement our wildlife crime figures. There are other agencies and a massive level of co-operation between us and them andvice versa.

An often unseen huge effort by NPWS is the number of hours spent patrolling, monitoring and responding to reports, investigating and engaging with stakeholders and preventing and deterring crimes. We try to capture as much of that data as we can. I hope some helpful statistics-----