Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Paul Murphy. I will begin by acknowledging all the communities out there. There are very many across my own constituency and they are growing daily. They are really engaged and energised in direct action to fight to help repair and preserve the biodiversity in their neighbourhoods. It is great to see it. I want to thank Jane Stout and Micheál Ó Cinnéide for their review and their work. It is an excellent piece of work and highlights well the problems and systemic neglect of our NPWS.

I also think of wider, deeper systemic problems in how we interact with and protect or fail to protect our natural systems and biodiversity. On the action plan, I make the observation that there is a massive disconnect between the scale of the crisis we face, the report of our chief agency with responsibilities in this area, the action plan and its timeframe. For example, on the hiring of an international expert to benchmark the staffing levels, aside from whether we need one or not, when we look at the actions, it promises to appoint an international expert to benchmark staffing levels. Their findings will be reported in December. By June 2023, their plan will be approved and by March 2024 their findings will have started to be implemented. By March 2024, all going well, we may see the beginning of the implementation of recommendations on staffing. To be quite frank, the plan is peppered with that sort of corporate guff. Setting up new directorates is another example, as is the proposal that the NPWS become an executive agency of the Department. I understand that these corporate and structural changes may be needed. When we consider the scale of the crisis and the scale of the failures, however, this does not seem to match what is needed.

The scale of the crisis is something else. The Minister of State is aware of that. One in five of all species assessed in Ireland is threatened with extinction. For bees and fish, the figure stands an alarming 30%. Some 63% of regularly occurring bird species in Ireland are of conservation concern. Those of most concern include the iconic species of the corncrake, the curlew, the lapwing and the barn owl, and now also widespread species like the meadow pipit, the snipe and the kestrel. I was struck some time ago by a statement from an Irish Wildlife Trust representative, Pádraic Fogarty, who told the Dáil committee that: "a cloud of neglect and apathy has smothered the natural world. It is a terrible legacy that we are leaving for the next generation." In light of this, I am not sure that a cross-cutting standing committee with an international benchmarked staffing expert is what we need.

I welcome the recognition of the dedication of the staff of the NPWS. However, I am also struck by the neglect and political apathy that the report records. There has been failure by successive Governments to afford even minimal protection to supposedly protected sites and species, which is really wrong and breathtaking. Although I think proper funding of the agency and enforcement are really required and are a very welcome start, they are not the full story. The biodiversity crisis fundamentally stems from our economic priorities, from an agricultural system driven by profit, big agrifood corporate interests, reliance on monocrops, the use of nitrogen fertilisers and the current cruelty inflicted on animals generally in the interests of feeding not people but profit margins. This is intrinsically linked with the climate crisis and both require a radical break from the economic system that is driving the loss of plants and animal species and throwing even our existence into doubt.

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