Ms Ciara Carberry:

I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for the very interesting and broad range of questions. I will speak to the designations piece and the dispersal of the sites around the country. Deputy Kenny also alluded to it earlier. There is a reason that the pieces of wildness left to us in Ireland are in the places of Ireland that are difficult to farm.

Some of those marginal lands where it was not particularly profitable to farm, are the least touched of all of our areas. Wild Nephin National Park is probably the least touched of all, as Mr. Ó Donnchú mentioned. Why is the land designated in those places? Under the nature directives in Europe, in particular, they pick where we have threatened and vulnerable habitats and endangered species. These are places that are already in trouble. As mentioned earlier, they would not have been designated if they were not in difficulty already. The purpose of the designation is to try to bring them back, protect them, stop them getting worse and restore them to good condition.

The dispersal of sites and tourist sites in particular around the country is not even because they tend to be concentrated in the wilder places and in the places that are unique on the European stage. Much of Ireland's Atlantic seaboard comprises landscapes and has species and habitats that are very rare in a European context. The success or failure of the designations and regulations and all the drive of the State to protect and restore these areas will ultimately come down to us being able to make it more valuable for the communities, landowners and farmers in those areas to have the land and those species in good condition than it is for them to make the condition of the habitats and species worse. The whole thing will turn on that in the end. As Mr. Ó Donnchú said, there is no protecting nature without people. There is no wildlife enforcement without the support of communities. It cannot be imposed entirely in a top-down way. In the past, some of the designations and approaches we have done to protect nature have not involved communities very well.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service has changed profoundly over the past couple of years, as I am sure the committee knows. One of the changes is that we used to have four geographical divisions, each one headed by a divisional manager, whereas we now have nine. Mr Philip Buckley is the divisional manager in the Deputy's area. He is an extraordinary person and has given an extraordinary lifetime of work to the service. I think it is fair to say that for the first time now he is able to stretch a little bit to acquire some areas of very special significance. Some of them are like tiny little jewels of land, a little bit of foraging habitat for lesser horseshoe bats, say. They are very special places. We have never been in a position to do that before. We have to build it step by step. We are building our organisation, step by step. Ireland is building its response to the biodiversity crisis step by step and we are doing it in a different way.