Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be sharing with Deputies Niall Collins, McAuliffe and Pádraig O'Sullivan.

Fianna Fáil welcomes the opportunity to debate the annual transition statement as it relates to the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Unfortunately, due to the time lapse between when this debate was supposed to happen in January and now, the circumstances in which the transition will take place have changed utterly. Though only six months old, the document is in many respects a relic of another time. For example, it makes no mention of the European Green Deal, which will now play a pivotal role in climate action over the course of the next 30 years, and it predates the Covid-19 pandemic and the changes that have flowed from same.

While there may have been some positive developments in recent times, the current action plan is not capable of delivering the necessary annual emission targets to meet our Paris Agreement commitments. The latest data from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, indicated that Ireland ranked 26th out of 28 EU countries for progress to the 2020 renewable targets. If we do not make the significant changes required now, the opportunity will be lost forever.

We must look to the future, and this debate gives us an opportunity to highlight some of the commitments contained in the draft programme for Government, Our Shared Future. Protecting our national heritage and biodiversity is a key ambition of the programme and it makes concrete proposals and commitments in terms of how that will be achieved. More than a year has passed since the Dáil declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. The next Government needs to respond to that. The programme will see improving biodiversity as an all-of-Government ambition, one that will see significant involvement by our local authorities. A citizens' assembly on biodiversity will be established. All actors with the State need to be on board if we are to execute the change that is so desperately needed.

In the draft programme for Government, commitments in the areas of biodiversity and natural and built heritage are made. We commit to progressing the establishment of a citizens' assembly on biodiversity. We commit to promoting biodiversity initiatives across primary, post-primary and third level sectors and ensuring that our schools, colleges and universities across the country play an active role in providing areas to promote biodiversity. This is about the next generation. We have often seen our schools raising their green flags in respect of biodiversity. It is the promotion and development of those types of initiatives that the next Government will have to ensure if we are to improve biodiversity.

We will renew the remit, status and funding of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, to ensure that it plays an effective role in delivering on its overall mandate and enforcement role in the protection of wildlife. It was only a number of weeks ago that the House held a good debate on that very issue.

We will ensure that all local authorities have sufficient numbers of biodiversity and heritage officers among their staff complements. All of us have good relationships with our respective heritage officers. For example, I have a good relationship with our excellent people in Cavan and Monaghan who go to great lengths under their five-year heritage plans to engage with local groups and organisations and with people on the ground who care passionately about biodiversity and natural heritage. They are the people whom we need to support with resources if we are to deliver on those plans.

Plans are one thing but implementing and delivering those plans is the measure of them.

We will support biodiversity data collection, publish a new national pollination plan and encourage public bodies to promote and protect biodiversity. We will review the protection of our national heritage, including hedgerows, native woodland and wetlands. We will develop a national invasive species management plan. We will co-ordinate the actions in the programme for Government regarding peatlands and the maximising of benefits for biodiversity. We will introduce policies and supports for urban biodiversity and tree planting while encouraging and supporting local authorities to reduce the use of pesticides in public areas. We will continue to implement the third national biodiversity plan 2017-21 and support local nature groups and local authorities to work in partnership on local biodiversity projects.

We all have had connections with different community groups around the country that have won the Golden Mile competition. I have seen the huge importance of that initiative locally when people begin to take note and become more aware of their natural and built heritage. It also encourages people from outside a particular area to go and enjoy the national treasures to be found there. Projects like these, managed by local authorities, need to be enhanced and that requires funding and resources. We will continue to raise awareness of biodiversity through initiatives like the annual biodiversity awards scheme. We will build on the success of the UNESCO Dublin Bay biosphere and achieve further UNESCO designations for Irish sites, including the Lough Allen region. We will appoint education liaison officers in each of our national parks to work with schools across the country to promote the importance of biodiversity and the natural world and involve pupils in the work that goes on in the parks.

In regard to our built heritage, we will publish and implement the new whole-of-government heritage policy and begin its nationwide implementation. We will explore multiannual funding models and ensure adequate funding is made available for the implementation of each county heritage plan. I compliment the work of Anne Marie Ward and Shirley Clerkin in the local authorities in Cavan and Monaghan, respectively, for the amazing work they do with very few resources. We will continue to support the role of heritage officers in the areas of heritage, education, health, well-being and citizen science. We will encourage each local authority to appoint a conservation and repurposing officer. There is a huge amount of important work to be done in this area when people have the backing.

We will build on community-led schemes such as the built heritage investment scheme and the structures at risk fund and provide grant aid to protect and maintain important historical buildings in our local communities. All over the country, we can see how the Heritage Council, the built heritage investment scheme and the structures at risk fund have made an enormous impact in protecting buildings where there would not otherwise be the funds to save, protect and conserve them. Old farmhouses and coach houses, for instance, are some of the important buildings right across the country which we need to do all we can to save and maintain.

We will encourage traditional building skills and devise an apprentice programme that will help to build a sustainable construction sector focusing on heritage disciplines and crafts. We will expand the heritage in schools scheme so that more students can enjoy our rich natural heritage and culture. We will continue the expansion of the national inventory of architectural heritage and include modern and industrial buildings in it. We will continue to develop and implement the master plan for our national parks and national reserves. Finally, we will establish a scheme for all schools promoting visits to our historic OPW sites.

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