Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for that response. I was conscious of the language I used and how specific I wanted to be because I want to talk about uncontrolled burning. As I said, I have been out with those hill and sheep farmers and they have shown me the manpower needed to perform a controlled burning. That is not what I am talking about; I am not talking about instances of responsible land management. If Cromwell sent the Irish people to hell or to Connacht, we have sent our biodiversity and wildlife to the hedge or the uplands. Those are the reserves we have left. Even those are now under enormous pressure. That is what we witnessed this weekend gone.

We hear the phrase "just transition" mentioned often in the House. Here is an example of where the rubber needs to meet the road in that regard. Under our current model, the people who work on that land, who spoke to me passionately about how attached they are to their landscape, cannot make a bob out of it. They are forced into practices they do not agree with. They have the very skills, knowledge and experience we need to unlock to make these biodiversity-rich habitats functioning for carbon sequestration and water management. I have a community of hill farmers in Waterford. The Minister of State, Deputy Butler, will know these people as well. They are great people and they are ready for this. They are ready to participate in projects and initiatives that manage this landscape better. They have the tools and the skills. Let us engage with them and make sure the funding is acting in the right way. Let us share that vision.

We have seen some of it in Eoghan Daltun's amazing book on the Irish rainforest. We have seen some examples in the Scottish Highlands. Let us spell it out to people. Let us show them what we think these landscapes could look like and the richness, the value and the worth we can build into these landscapes if we only fund it appropriately.

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