Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan. The Ceann Comhairle has been around this House a lot longer than I have, but it is fair to say that what we saw last night was quite a rare and remarkable thing. We saw Members across the floor of this House come together and vote together, overwhelmingly, for the nature restoration law. That is something that needs to be acknowledged. We saw last night a political consensus on the importance of restoring nature. If only we could find that consensus with respect to so many other challenges we have. We sent a strong signal to Europe ahead of the plenary vote on the nature restoration law next week.

I commend Government and Opposition colleagues. I see Deputy O'Rourke, my colleague on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action and I know he has led in this area within his party, as he always does. I also commend Deputies Fitzmaurice, Harkin and McNamara, who brought the original motion, because it was a debate worth having.

Most importantly, I want to commend the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. It seems that any debate in which he is involved is respectful and that is a credit to him and his approach to debate and working with others across politics. The result last night was the output of that non-adversarial approach. It was unique and the Minister of State is unique. He loves his brief. He is a man who loves nature. He is particularly suited to his brief. I was listening in my office to him speak about eagles, ospreys, natterjacks and so much more in the earlier part of the debate. We cannot but get from the Minister of State the infectious enthusiasm he has for nature. Not only does he love his role but he is determined to make progress, and he is doing so. I do not need to repeat what was in his statement but it is remarkable just what has been achieved in recent years in turning the ship. We are going in the right direction. We are coming from a very bad place but so much has been done and we have a lot more to do. I commend everybody for the positive politics on display.

I want to pick up on one point with respect to the National Parks and Wildlife Service. In that organisation there are hundreds of staff who love nature just as much as the Minister of State. They are very special people. They are highly qualified in all cases and they work extremely hard. They are probably not rewarded sufficiently for the work they do. They do these jobs because they love them. To some extent, the State is taking advantage of these people because they will do these jobs anyway. I do not think it is fair that remuneration generally for these great people is not as high it should be.

Deputy Bruton mentioned that the committee I chair will take on the report of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss in the autumn. Deputy O'Sullivan will speak after me and he is also a member of the committee. We must figure out how to achieve political consensus on the 159 recommendations of the citizens' assembly. That will not be easy. We will have to develop political positions and ultimately come to a conclusion. I hope that come Christmas this year when our work is concluded, we will have achieved a substantial political consensus. The debates in the House today and last night should inspire us to achieve this political consensus. I will now cede time to Deputy O'Sullivan.

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