Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Labour Party in this very important debate here today. In the first instance, real credit is owed to the Minister of State for delivering this plan. It is a very good one and has great potential. I also sincerely say that this is a great credit to the Green Party for ensuring that this particular initiative made it into the programme for Government. Great credit is also owed to the Minister of State personally because we are now at the point where we have at the very least a two-year strategic plan for the renewal and redevelopment of the NPWS. It can be a source of great pride for him also that, after many years, we are seeing a significant increase in the resources available to the NPWS from a current expenditure point of view but also from a staffing one. That is something that the Labour Party has sought as the country’s economic fortunes improved. It is very welcome indeed.

It is incredible to think that the vast spectrum of work which the Minister of State outlined earlier on which is undertaken by the NPWS has been carried out by approximately 400 staff over the past number of years and I acknowledge that additional staff are on the way. We must see everything we do, not just in the context of the work of Minister of State’s own Department, through the prism and lens of biodiversity and climate action. That is not just a matter for the Minister of State's own Department or for the NPWS. It is not just a matter for every Department and Government agency but is one for everybody across society. We need to take this issue much more seriously than we have done to date.

I also hope that Deputies who claim to almost exclusively and uniquely represent rural Ireland are as concerned about this as are the Minister of State and the rest of us and that they support the work of the NPWS in the way that they should. It is unfortunate that there are some who claim to uniquely speak for rural Ireland but who are not here this afternoon and are not participating in this debate, at least not at this point in time.

There are certain elements of the plan which I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister of State, if I may, in the limited time that I have available to me. I note on page 7 of the summary document that the “Government may also wish to consider the wider issue of the roles and functions of public bodies in relation [to] biodiversity and nature at this juncture”. I would like to see the Minister of State and his colleagues go further than merely considering this. As I said earlier, this is a matter for every Department, every agency and every local authority, as well as for everybody across society. This is everybody’s responsibility and is a cross-society endeavour.

I welcome the fact that we will have an executive agency running the NPWS. That will give a degree of autonomy and independence to the service and will give it more heft and influence across Government, Departments and agencies. I am also glad that there is also a commitment on the appropriate grading of staff, which is very important. It is important that the Minister of State brings staff with him on that journey and I am sure that the Minister of State, the Department and the NPWS are corporately committed to engaging with the relevant trade unions to ensure that this process is robust, that there is significant consultation, and that this is done in a transparent way.

I trust that the Minister of State will forgive me for raising what may be considered to be a narrowly parochial matter. I do so in the context of the plan more generally and the Minister of State’s commitment to biodiversity, to wildlife preservation and conservation, and to its care. The Minister of State is familiar with the work of Wildlife Rehabilitation Ireland, WRI, and I believe he visited its former facility outside Navan in the past. It has now moved its service to an interim site in Mornington just outside of Drogheda, beside the Boyne Estuary. I attended a public meeting with that organisation last Monday and I visited the site which it currently occupies on Tuesday.

The Minister of State is aware how dedicated it is and that there is not a stand-alone State-funded organisation dedicated to the rescue, care, rehabilitation and return to the wild of orphaned and injured wildlife. He knows exactly what it does. I was not certain exactly what it did until I had the briefing on Monday and the visit on Tuesday and nor had I knowledge of the amount of educational and awareness-raising work it does with veterinary professionals and nurses, as well as with the wider community. It intends to develop the site on an interim basis and I understand that an application is going to Meath County Council very shortly. I am also told that we could have a best-in-class, state-of-the-art wildlife hospital and education centre for as little as a €2 million capital investment from the State. I am unaware if the NPWS has a capital line of funding available to it or if there is such a line of funding available from the Department to develop facilities such as this but this is something that should be looked at.

The Minister of State is very much committed to addressing the phenomenon of wildlife crime. It is an insidious matter and the NPWS and the Garda work closely together on those matters. More work needs to be done. WRI is dealing with the manifestation of wildlife crime and injuries to animals and we really should have a zero-tolerance approach to wildlife crime. I ask that the Minister of State might take a personal interest in the work of WRI, to monitor this closely, and to work with me and other interested parties to try to develop that service as best we can. When I read about this earlier this year, the wildlife crime unit only had one official on its books. Can the Minister confirm if that position has changed in recent months? We cannot have an effective wildlife crime unit with simply one staff member.

I hope that within the additional quantum of staff allocated to the NPWS, there will be significant investment in the wildlife crime unit and that staff will continue to work with An Garda Síochána and, indeed, the wider community.

The work the NPWS does with local organisations is really important. I am aware of that work in my community and constituency, such as the little terns project in the Boyne Estuary. The professionalism of the NPWS and the advice it provides are really valued. We value the organisation and want to see it develop. I thank the Minister of State for his commitment to ensuring that happens. This is a good day.

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