Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, on progressing this hugely important piece of work, which was a key commitment for the Green Party in the programme for Government. Our biodiversity and natural world have not been valued and protected in Ireland in the way they should have been in the past. The Government has changed that and the renewal of the NPWS is a big part of that change.

The natural world is under increasing pressure across Ireland. The NPWS has particular responsibility to alleviate that pressure and to protect our national heritage areas, special areas of conservation, special protection areas, national parks and reserves. Reform of the NPWS will give us the opportunity to resource fully the proper protection of these particularly precious areas. There is a very important special area of conservation in north county Dublin along the Broadmeadow Estuary, which is an area rich in biodiversity but that has been under increasing pressure for some years from littering, fly tipping and pollution. This is symptomatic of the disconnection we have seen between previous commitments and plans in this regard and the reality in local areas. The missing piece is clarity of accountability and also resourcing. These plans for the NPWS will significantly improve that situation.

As Minister of State at the Department of Rural and Community Development, it is important for me to acknowledge that rural areas hold much of Ireland's natural resources and biodiversity. The work of the NPWS makes an important contribution to conserving our biodiversity and helping to sustain the attractiveness and fabric of our rural communities. The Government is committed to ensuring the effective implementation of its statutory and other responsibilities towards the environment and biodiversity and to achieving a climate-neutral future. The Department's ongoing partnership and dialogue with rural communities across a wide range of policy and programme areas is a key part of realising this commitment to our shared environment.

The NPWS has a very important role to play in regard to recreational access to our national parks and nature reserves. My Department has a strong working relationship with the service, through Comhairle na Tuaithe, and we will continue to build on this. The development of the national outdoor recreation strategy has benefited greatly from the involvement of the NPWS among its stakeholders and as a member of the strategy working group, particularly in bringing a focus onto environmental issues and the importance of our natural environment, as recognised in the Our Rural Future policy document. The strategy places a strong emphasis on reducing impact and protecting our rich biodiversity while making the outdoors accessible for all. This includes actions on dispersal of visitors from sensitive areas and the creation of guidance for outdoor events. The strategy also aims to create a communications plan to promote awareness of the environment and responsible enjoyment of the outdoors. The review and restructuring of NPWS is particularly welcome in light of the new national outdoor recreation strategy and the recognition of the importance afforded to our natural environment in Our Rural Future.

This week is National Volunteering Week, which affords us a dedicated opportunity to celebrate and acknowledge the contribution of volunteers to society and to the environment. I give specific thanks and acknowledgement to the volunteers who protect and nurture biodiversity across the land. In particular, I pay tribute to the thousands of foot soldiers for biodiversity who are our Tidy Towns Awards volunteers. That initiative is directly supported by my Department. Biodiversity is an increasingly key component of the competition and one of the categories is solely devoted to it. In fact, demonstration of a commitment to "nature and biodiversity in your locality" carries 55 marks for participants. The competition has a series of special awards that add a new dimension to the initiative. One of these, the all-Ireland pollinator award, is sponsored by the heritage offices and biodiversity offices of local authorities across the country, in partnership with the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

In my role in the Department of Social Protection, I oversee community employment schemes, Tús and the rural social scheme, RSS. There are numerous examples of community employment, RSS and Tús projects and participants working to promote biodiversity, undertake locally adapted conservation projects and tackle invasive species, such as Japanese knotweed and rhododendron. These projects are operating throughout the country. In addition, projects on greenways, maintaining and enhancing waymarked ways, agreed walks and bog roads, energy conservation work, village and countryside enhancement projects, bog and wetlands projects, and restoring ecosystems are all currently in place under the community employment scheme. Earlier this year, I visited one such project with the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, which is a community-led project in the Bundorragha river catchment in south-west Mayo. Its aim is to develop and test best-practice methods in eradicating the invasive rhododendron species. It is supported by many partners, including the NPWS, and, crucially, the small farmers who are RSS participants and are central to this important environmental project.

Another example is Clonakilty area sports club community scheme, participants in which planted, landscaped and maintain Bennett's Mill Field in Clonakilty town, including work on the pond and wildflower meadow. IRD Duhallow, a key development company in Cork, was one of the first organisations to include and build RSS and Tús participation into its LIFE biodiversity work. For example, all 36 primary schools and four secondary schools in the area have been visited and programmes on biodiversity have been delivered by one of the Tús supervisors. The latter led a full scheme of participants to support the LIFE programme, including work on the importance of water quality. Community employment scheme participants employed by Athlone Community Services are placed to work with Athlone Canal Heritage Group on improving the biodiversity and water quality of a 2.6 km stretch of the Athlone Canal.

One of my main responsibilities as Minister of State is overseeing the social inclusion and community activation programme, SICAP, which funds more than 600 community workers across the country in areas of disadvantage. An increasing number of projects are being led and developed by communities that interweave social inclusion and biodiversity protection. Under just one of SICAP's key goals, for instance, it is currently supporting 37 community gardens, eight environmental groups, 20 local community groups with agriculture and fishing as their focus and 21 social enterprises in the environment health and food sector. There are a number of projects I would like to namecheck, namely, the Inishturk organic community garden, Biodiversity Kerry and Galway City Partnership's Let's Get Galway Growing programme.

The publication of this strategic action plan for the NPWS will help to build a more resilient, better resourced and ultimately stronger service with the ability to better protect our natural environment and heritage. It is a significant milestone. When taken in conjunction with other initiatives, only some of which I have had time to mention today, it is clear that our whole-of-government approach recognises that biodiversity is more important now than ever.

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