Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

When will he see the 2016 and 2017 audits? The Minister responsible needs to look at those audits. There are concerns about the systemic underfunding of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. This is a reflection of other issues like the underfunding of the protection of corncrakes and curlews and the mismanagement of moneys going to farmers in the wrong places for the protection of the right birds. I do not have time to go into the detail of the anomalies in how proportionately conservation grants are divvied out to farmers. There are problems with the checks that are done to see how those grants are used. For example, there needs to be an assessment of whether farmers are doing the works that are required to protect species like the corncrake and the curlew and of whether there is enough oversight on the whole project. That some of this work has been outsourced to Birdwatch Ireland, an organisation for which I have great respect, is an indication of the systemic underfunding and understaffing of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. This could have an impact on the oversight of munitions and arms.

See this speech in context