Mr. Teddy Cashman:

We launched a report last week, which was pretty well publicised. We have gone through a process over the last 12 to 14 months on deer management. We set up the deer management strategy group in September of last year. We were set up by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage who has responsibility for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. We started the process pretty much by looking at what had happened before, which was the previous forum that had existed from about 2014 to 2018. The previous forum looked at all the different aspects of the impacts of deer but did not address the solutions or what needed to be done. However, that forum did a lot of work on TB and analysis as part of that report. We had not really concentrated on the TB one in this particular process because the work had been done. From that perspective, the statistics are there to correlate that one.

Next, we set up a public consultation. That was very important from the point of view of getting the public's view on what should happen around deer. We had a broad ranging interaction for the consultation. We have about 1,500 respondents which is quite a lot for a public consultation and they were: 757 rural individuals; 360 urban individuals; 314 farmers; 283 landowners; and 177 others, foresters, ecologists, academics, non-governmental organisations, public bodies, farm representative organisations, trade bodies, research organisations and local authorities. From the point of view of the committee, we had a few interesting outcomes that were very relevant as we went further into this, which were what are the main impacts that people feel the deer are having, and what are the most prevalent ones or the ones that are having the biggest impact. I will rank the impacts in order of size: biodiversity damage, 82.47%; damage to agriculture, which would be crops, pasture, grazing and fencing, 81.02%; road traffic accidents, and I know a Deputy had experiences of that, 80.1%; damage to high-value nature conservation sites; damage to farm infrastructure; forestry damage; impaired deer welfare; and threat to farm animal health and welfare. All of these were over two thirds, or 66%. A two thirds majority in anything is very relevant and a public vote of over 66% means action is required. Everything over 66% is very much in the realm. The lowest impact was damage to gardens, which was 35.52%. Such damage is relevant to those involved but it is not something on which we will take Government action.

The other nature question that came out of that report was what do we do next or how can we manage this matter. There has been lots of discussion on deer management. We have looked abroad and at home and the general means of deer management is to reduce the population by culling, which is basically shooting. We have looked at previous options, such as contraception and other methods, but with deer being a wild animal such strategies are very hard to implement. A strategy might be noble and something that should be done but it just cannot be done with a wild animal. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine can do things with badgers but badgers are a small animal and can be found in sets. Unfortunately, the same strategies cannot be applied to the deer population as a deer is a wild animal.

In terms of solutions, we asked the following questions. What is the importance of the following options in addressing the impacts? The main solutions are: deer culling 86%; supports for landowners or land managers to control deer 78.%, which also relates to culling; a commercially successful wild venison market 69%; increased access to education and training for hunters 69%; and contracting hunters 68.25%. It all relates to the culling of deer as a means of reducing the deer population. What you are not trying to do is roll out an extermination programme. It is important to get some kind of equilibrium into the scenario. As Chairman of the group, I engaged with all the stakeholders that were involved so the foresters, farmers, the farming organisations, the deer hunting organisations, the ecologists, the Departments and Coillte.

For the information of this committee, I will outline the members of the Irish deer management strategy group. There were seven members starting off. The three people from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine were: Dr. Damien Barrett, who is here; Mr. David Quinn; and Mr. Seppi Höna. We had three people from the NPWS who were: Ms Claire Crowley; Mr. Ferdia Marnell; and Mr. Wesley Atkinson. The last member was Mr. Ken Sweeney from Coillte. I thought it was very important that the main State forestry body would be involved and Coillte is the major landowner. I will meet members of the senior management of Coillte next week. We have had an interdepartmental process and we have tried to bring every aspect of the thing into it.

I met all the stakeholders in the spring of last year. We had a full stakeholder meeting at the end of April where the focus was to present to the stakeholders the outcome from the public consultation and outline the next steps. After that meeting we set up five subcommittees and I know that it was asked in the Dáil what five subcommittees could do to solve the deer scenario. I put it to the stakeholders at the meeting that what we wanted to discover was what was going to solve the problem. I said we were looking for solutions and we would break them down into five areas. I said to the stakeholders that it would be their solutions to the problem and that the people who know the scenario must come forward with solutions.

We set up five subcommittees and the aim was to have ten people involved on each committee. We received 120 applicants for the five subcommittees, so we had to cull the number. Some organisations had people seeking to participate in two subcommittees rather than five subcommittees. We had to arrange it, so that we had appropriate people in appropriate places. We set up five subcommittees which are: venison; collaboration, which is very important for the group; legislation; training and education; and solutions for land management.

I wish to make one point which I neglected to make earlier. At the start of the process and before we did the public consultation, we looked at the report produced by the Wicklow Uplands Council. The council did some very good work on deer management units and case studies between 2018 and 2022. The council published its report in 2022. A lot of the groundwork had been done as to how these scenarios work, which I will discuss in a minute, and I put that to the five subcommittees. I did not chair any of the subcommittees.

The five chairmen are as follows: Mr. David Quinn, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, chaired the venison subcommittee; Mr. Ken Sweeney, Coillte, chaired the collaboration subcommittee; Mr. Padraig Comerford, National Parks and Wildlife Service, chaired the legislation subcommittee; Mr. John Casey, Teagasc, chaired the training and education subcommittee; and Mr. Seppi Höna, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, chaired the solutions for land management subcommittee.

We set up clear terms of reference for the five subcommittees. They had their own area on which to work If there were any overarching issues that people wanted to raise as part of their subgroup, and if they had not been a member of the other subgroup they could raise the issue with the subgroup as well, all issues would be fed into the scenario when drafting conclusions afterwards.

As regards a timeline, I gave the subcommittees a tight timeframe of two months in which to hold meetings. I did that because I feel that if things go on over a longer period, then meetings would only be a talking shop. Each subcommittee had a clear scenario of having output over a couple of months. Some subcommittees had two meetings while others had four meetings. The meetings were finished by 20 July of last year and we were fit to prepare proposals for the Minister by the end of August. We were keen that we had to look for funding for this process as the budgetary process was on as well. Funding was very important from our perspective.

What came out of the process? There was a lot of commonality between the groups so now we have 15 recommendations which have been put forward in the report. The group's report is quite comprehensive from the point of view that it gives a background and reason for deer culling, and the background to the biodiversity.

There are a number of main actions which are either short term or medium term. The most important short-term action is the appointment of a programme manager to set up deer management units with local co-ordinators. The issue with deer management in Ireland is that it has been everybody's responsibility and none so we need somebody for whom it is their sole responsibility.

As an initial phase we must establish a number of deer management units in local areas, particularly in the hotspot areas around the country to get the scheme up and running. We hope to do that in the next eight or nine months. We will engage on that immediately in the new year and we have meetings set up to go about that.

The next short-term action is for the programme manager, in conjunction with deer management strategy group, to develop an implementation plan. We are building so there will be further phases in this plan. We will start with the programme manager and look at areas around marketing venison, and assess whether supports are needed in areas for taking out younger animals. All that kind of stuff needs to be bottomed out and a budget attached. We must quantify things and put things together in a proper submission.

However, we cannot do it until we have somebody on the ground to do the assessments on that.

I mentioned setting up local deer management units. Revisions in the legislation and statutory instruments need to be done as well. There are a few of those around. The one in the Department of agriculture that needs to be addressed relates to how many deer a person can sell to a restaurant. In Ireland, a person can only sell three deer per annum to any one establishment. In the UK, the figure is 3,000, so that is quite a disparity. It is an issue that needs to be addressed and we have been working on it. There are anomalies that can cause problems in the system.

Another issue is in respect of the open seasons order and the term in which a person can shoot deer. For females, the open season currently runs from 1 November to the end of February. We are hoping to extend it and bring it into line with Northern Ireland, which would be from 1 August for stags and from 1 November to the end of March for females. We are looking to get that and I have been dealing with it. It is the area of the National Parks and Wildlife Service and is also a statutory instrument. It can be dealt with and we are hoping to progress it through the system over the next number of months.

Other changes to the Wildlife Act are needed with regard to how deer management units would work. At the moment, a landowner applies for a section 42 licence for out-of-season hunting. We hope the deer management unit could do this in order that things could be done as a block or body and there would be a consistent approach taken across a group of people rather than have individuals working together. A group approach will need legislation. The Wildlife Act is being reconstituted, which could take 18 to 24 months to complete. This provision needs to be included in it and that will happen in the next 18 to 24 months. Those are the kinds of things that need to be progressed.

On investigating supportive incentives, I spoke about that with the likes of venison. There are things we need to do very soon, including revising the statutory instrument process in section 42 of the Wildlife Act. In the medium term, a few things related need to be done to facilitate deer hunting within forestry and related to how forestry is set up. On mainland Europe, forestry is set up with deer lawns, that is, areas within forestry where you can shoot deer. I told the lads earlier that I travelled by bus from Frankfurt to Munich two weeks ago, which is a long journey. I counted 165 high seats for shooting deer on the trip that I could see from the bus. That is the kind of infrastructure in place in Europe for taking out wildlife on an ongoing basis. We do not have that infrastructure here. We need to put in an infrastructure. This is an ongoing process. We need a structure around it and a means for collating the data to have the statistics to make sure that what is set out to happen is actually happening. I think this can happen if the right funding is put behind it, there is a will to do it and we go about it. To be fair, we have cross-departmental collaboration between all the bodies. If we can keep the momentum going and get funding, I am confident we can make progress. I am appealing to the committee to put its might behind this to get it done. It is an important process.

The next point is to have phased certification for hunters over the next three to five years. This is to make sure all hunters have done the required training and have updated the training.

I refer to the integration of a deer management module in agriculture, forestry, land management and environmental training courses. That is just so people know about it and what is involved.

Another issue is setting up a deer management agency, which will take time. We had interactions with the likes of NatureScot in Scotland, which has a strong agency. It has 18 to 20 people whose sole job, seven days a week, is deer management in Scotland. There are quite a lot of hunters there. It is a bigger place and there are more deer, so it is a different scenario. However, it gives us a good template for what can be done. The targets they put in place for deer densities are a fraction of what we have in Ireland. In other words, we have a long way to go to get to anywhere near where they have been for a long time.

The whole deer piece is a big project. We are at the start. I am not promising huge progress in eight or nine months but if we can get a start made, we can build progress over a period of time.

Regarding the main impacts from the committee's point of view, I think the main impact in forestry is underestimated. New forestry has been severely impacted by deer damage, particularly native woodland. It is a huge issue in forestry. Coillte is definitely looking at it; it is on its radar. We have the issue of biodiversity, which is important. From the point of view of climate targets, forestry is a huge issue. TB has been well quantified. In County Wicklow, we have data for TB going back years, although it is not as well quantified in the rest of the country. It shows a clear correlation. I was in Wicklow 14 months ago at a large farmer meeting with the Irish Farmers Association. Dr. Barrett led it on the Department's side. I got a clear feeling of disquiet among farmers and the real damage that has been done where the densities are high. It is a broad spectrum of impacts across the country.

Deer cannot really be counted effectively. You rely on impact assessments, which need to be ramped up, be they road traffic accidents, biodiversity damage in forestry or TB impact, wherever they are in an area. The areas with the high impacts should be addressed first with accelerated management programmes in those areas. There are a number of hot-spot areas that need to be addressed, such as Wicklow, places in south Tipperary, parts of Kerry, south Galway and Donegal. The impacts will be the signpost towards this.

I have spoken at length but it gives a round-up of where we are.