Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. As he is aware, just four days ago, on Sunday 7 March, 18 firefighters, two Civil Defence units and the National Parks and Wildlife Service tackled a large gorse fire at Scarr Mountain in County Wicklow. This fire ended up scorching 50 ha of land designated as special area of conservation, which is our national park in Wicklow. These gorse fires are illegal from 1 March and this fire marks the start of the illegal fire season, which is a cyclical event that causes untold environmental, human and economic damage, not to mention putting firefighters, the Air Corps and emergency workers at risk.

Last year, a disproportionate number of illegal fires occurred in the Wicklow Mountains National Park. There were six as of June 2020 with one other major fire recorded in Killarney. More than 400 ha of protected land as well as wildlife were destroyed. In one area of commonage in the park, there have been illegal fires on the same land for 11 of the 19 years up to 2019. This land will take years to recover from an environmental perspective. The fire damage has been so frequent and intense that the land may never recover. It is not just from an environmental perspective because the burning of this land also impacted heavily on the air quality in the area, on the headwaters of the Liffey and on drinking water piped into Dublin.

Illegal fires on that scale also contribute greatly to our CO2 emissions which we struggle to try to drive down. From an environmental and biodiversity perspective, they are devastating. It can take years for land to recover and for wildlife to recover. They are devastating for wildlife and for bird populations. According to Birdwatch Ireland, red grouse, whinchat, meadow pipit and amber-listed species including skylark and stonechat are most at risk from gorse fires. Of course, for any birds that are breeding at the time, their nests and their young could be burnt, and it will stop them from foraging for food in nearby areas.

My constituents, both urban and rural, are tired of these fires happening every year. They are tired of seeing our firefighters having to fight fires that should not be happening in the first place. There tired of the pollution and the threat to lives and property, and of the damage to our wildlife and to our national park. When I was first elected, I spoke about these fires and we are here again saying the same things and asking the same questions. We need to tackle the problem properly. The measures that have been put in place so far are not achieving what we need them to achieve. We cannot tolerate these fires anymore. We need to put a major effort into ensuring they do not happen.

I welcome that the Minister of State visited this site this week and I thank him for coming to Wicklow to check the land out. However, we need to see tangible action. What actions is the Minister of State taking to ensure these fires are stopped once and for all?

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