Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for arriving slightly late. I have just come from the Phoenix Park special school where the pupils, teachers and staff have been involved in creating a very special garden, a sensory garden, which will allow the pupils to be in an outdoor classroom when the weather permits, and to be surrounded not just by the trees of the Phoenix Park but also appropriate planting of herbs and other sensory plants which attract the biodiversity we are discussing.

There are a number of specific threats to biodiversity in Dublin. The Government must respond to questions in that regard because the Minister, Deputy Madigan, is not responsible in ministerial terms for all of it. There has been much debate in Dublin about BusConnects. While the vast majority agree in principle with many of the elements of BusConnects, Dubliners cannot stand by in the face of a proposed Government plan to cut down hundreds of mature trees on some of the most beautiful roads and avenues in Dublin. Trees are like natural vacuum cleaners in heavily polluted urban streets where there is a lot of traffic. The Minister must speak to her Government colleagues, including her constituency colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. We want better public transport and we want more buses, but we do not want to lose the trees that in many ways are the glory of many different roads in Dublin.

Unlike in France, Germany and many other countries, when builders develop a site, not just in Dublin but in all the urban regions, they are like foresters, those who cut down the rainforest. A clear-fell approach is taken on Irish building sites that one does not see in Germany, France or many other European countries. Birds, insects and bats are targeted by developers to give them a clear-fell site. That is a cultural change. Many of my family are builders or are tradesmen in the building industry. I know everybody wants a clean site to work on, just as a chef might need a clean table to prepare a meal. I urge the Minister and the Government to get the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, to amend the development and planning laws so that we respect the biodiversity and environmental heritage we have inherited in cities and towns and that we do not clear-fell all the trees on a building site.

I am part of a group, the Fingal Walkers. For those who do not know north County Dublin, it is a vast agricultural area where, piece by piece, the hedgerows over a short period have been cut down. In this case the Minister must examine what farmers in effect are being paid to do, which is to make their farming more efficient. Therefore they cut down or reduce hedgerows rather than having a policy which would acknowledge their critical role in looking after hedgerows which, essentially, in Ireland are vast ribbons of natural wildlife and biodiversity corridors. Anyone from abroad who visits Ireland regularly remarks that as an aeroplane flies into Dublin Airport or Cork Airport, it can be seen that the blanket of green fields surrounded by hedgerows is gradually being stripped away. That is because the farmers have been given an unpalatable alternative between reducing hedgerows and making their farming more efficient and the Government policy of supporting the retention of hedgerows.

We have had a discussion on the disastrous fires that occurred over Easter in the Killarney region where many thousands of acres were destroyed. The Minister indicated at the time that she had no idea who was responsible, but there is a lot of local knowledge and again it is about working out with the farming community and the landowners a system to provide for a safe approach so that valuable-----

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