Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús báire ba mhaith liom mo leithscéal a ghabháil. Ní bheidh mé in ann fanacht don chuid eile den díospóireacht agus tá orm deifir a dhéanamh leis an méid atá le rá agam. Biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate globally and Ireland is no exception. I think that we all accept that and it is a pity that we did not accept it earlier. We have been told that the decline has been more rapid in the last 50 years than ever before in human history. Human activity is leading to increased extinction rates of both plant and wildlife species and it is imperative that restorative measures are put in place to mitigate the damage. Ireland is not immune to the extinction rates in both plant and wildlife species. We are poisoning and destroying many of our ecosystems. We need to take urgent action and to invest to protect what remains of the ecosystems. I heard the Minister talk earlier about the woodlands and what happened when the woods were cut down. The old Irish poem "Caoineadh Cill Chais" comes to mind agus cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan an córas a chosnaíonn muidne agus a chuidíonn linn bia agus sin a chothú sa domhain, ní hamháin dúinne ach do no hainmhithe, do no beithigh agus dúinn atá ag maireachtáil linn ar an oileán agus sa domhain seo. The air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat all rely on maintaining a diversity of native plant species and an abundance of native wildlife. These species have survived, evolved and thrived slowly over thousands of years as species that are specifically adapted to our environment in Ireland. The same is true of every country in the world. We have different ecosystems.

The rapid and unprecedented economic and climate changes ub the past five decades now threaten the resilience of many aquatic bird and plant species on which we rely for clean water, fresh air and food production. From common or garden variety birds to raptors or birds of prey, from basking sea sharks to tiny plankton, from bumbling bees to annoying insects, we are entirely reliant on these species to aerate our soil, filter toxins from our water courses, pollinate our crops and prevent the spread of disease. An abundance of native broadleaf forestry and hedgerows is essential to maintaining these habitats, while also being a valuable store for carbon emissions. Biodiversity loss in Ireland is caused mainly by heavy use of pesticides, plastic ingestion, peat extraction, clearfelling of forestry, intensive agriculture, overfishing, toxic waste disposal and invasive species. These are all contributing to the decimation of the building blocks upon which our very survival depends and we must bear some responsibility for the solutions. The Government must take responsibility for implementing a regulatory framework to protect our most at-risk species. Corporations must be compelled to change their environmentally damaging practices and citizens must be educated on the importance of changing their behaviour and sharing responsibility as custodians of our most fragile ecosystems. I call on the Government to reorganise the Departments in order that biodiversity is transferred to a portfolio of environment, agriculture or climate change. That is not a slight on the Minister or her officials but there is a logic in doing that in order that they are all connected. I know heritage comes under the Minister's portfolio. That mirrors a conversation that we had with committee members earlier.

There are immediate steps that can be taken and the Minister has already mentioned some. I believe they can be added to. They include amending the Wildlife Act to include legal protections for marine life in line with protections for land-based animals and plants and reinstating Invasive Species Ireland, which was a joint project between the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the National Parks and Wildlife Service which ended in 2013, to the work of which I will come back. They also include commissioning a completion of the light detection and ranging sensing technology, LiDAR, mapping survey piloted by Teagasc, which recorded partial regions of the country in order to gather the data required for the whole country; as well as directing that all local authority county hedgerow surveys include metrics for the recording of biomass in order to ascertain their carbon sequestration value. They include updating the forestry blacklist of invasive species to include Sitka spruce, which has been blacklisted in most northern European countries. For far too long, the burden of safeguarding Ireland's fragile ecosystems has fallen to enthusiastic voluntary bodies and the farmers who have, for generations, understood the need to protect the ecosystems in which they have grown their crops. They have understood that they share and need to live in harmony. We have seen a move in some farming practices which are at odds with protecting ecosystems. We must remember that in many cases in Ireland, the primary protectors of ecosystems are the farmers who work the land. Those communities and the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, which have undertaken much of the work must be commended on it. We owe a great deal of gratitude to many of the organisations and volunteers in those organisations who have in fact become trustees. It is time to lift that burden and share responsibility across society.

I was looking at invasive species earlier because it is one of the five drivers of the loss, which I think we can do much more about more quickly at a relatively small cost. Invasive Species Ireland published a pamphlet outlining the list of invasive species in Ireland, what they are and what damage they are doing. Most of the foreign species that come into Ireland, whether North American, from New Zealand or Japanese, have had a major detrimental effect. We have heard of the rhododendron and how it has choked up must of the national parks. Outside of that, we have seen what Japanese pondweed has done to some of the lakes. The red squirrel has been virtually driven out of existence by the grey squirrel. Giant hogweed and such are non-native species that are choking up our ecosystems. I saw that the Minister mentioned additional money being given to the local authority but it is not enough. Kerry County Council ate up that whole budget just trying to tackle the rhododendron in Killarney National Park, with work groups that travel into Killarney to try to help. It is minuscule in comparison to what is needed for just that park alone.

We must ensure the invasive species are tackled quickly before they choke the life out of lakes and parks. They also destroy many of the native species because they cannot grow under the carpet-like cover that is created by some of the plants.

I apologise that I will not be here for the end of the debate. I will finish with the words of Joni Mitchell. In a song she said:

Hey farmer farmer

Put away that DDT now

Give me spots on my apples

But leave me the birds and the bees

Please!

The words are still very true today, probably more so than it was in 1970 when she sang them. I will not try to sing as I do not have a note in my head. I appeal to the Minister on behalf of all of the young people, but also every citizen. We need to get real. We need to invest a lot more money to save our native species but also to allow the planet to grow again, in our case, Ireland to grow again, in order that we can see native species in the future.

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