Dr. Liam Lysaght:

I agree full agree with the Deputy. Of course education is so important for children, but we do not have the luxury to wait for a generation to do things better than us. Biodiversity is a natural resource. It is worth €2.6 billion to the Irish economy and that figure has been worked out by the Department and is a tangible figure. We often hear about environmental designations, usually in a negative sense about what it will stop us from doing. We can look at that slightly differently. From Achill to Athens, or from Gibraltar to Nordkapp in Scandinavia, the European Commission has stated that 16% of Irish land area is unique. We can look at that as a positive thing. In Britain there are 1 million members alone of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. There are multiples of that number in Holland and Germany. Looking for wetlands - something in which we probably would have no interest on a wet day in Belmullet - is actually a fantastic resource. Tourism provides an opportunity to flag this, but efforts must go towards presenting the detail of what is there, rather than paying lip service. This issue needs to get to the heart of public policy in a positive way. There are great opportunities and we are missing them. I apologise as I do not mean to lecture, but it is a challenge I would like to put back to committee members, because they are in the position to do something significant about this.