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

Somebody is being appointed at the assistant principal followed by two ecologists and one clerical officer. That is within an organisation which as the Minister of State pointed out, deals with 780 national monuments, 300 plus hectares of parklands and 1,700 staff. It feels a little thin on the ground to me.

I refer in the brief time I have to two recommendations in particular from the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss. Recommendation 100 relates to the Arterial Drainage Act,1945 and states that it is no longer fit for purpose. This also relates to article 7 of the nature restoration law which deals with returning room to the rivers and an approach we are not seeing from the OPW currently. Recommendation 101 states that nature-based solutions must be included in State and community programmes to tackle flood management and should include whole-of-catchment area, hydromorphology planning and restoration. Hydromorphology is a skill in and of itself. It was not one of the skills listed or mentioned by the Minister of State in terms of gap analysis.

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