Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is nearly five years since we declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. I sat on a council that had a draft biodiversity plan for donkey's years and no biodiversity officer. The Department was starved of funds and leadership from governments. I have said this on the record. As well as this, there is an emergency brake in the scheme in addition to it being voluntary. It is very important the message goes out about this.

Globally natural areas are under severe pressure due to human activity and this is worsened by climate breakdown. This is almost five years after we declared an emergency, led by the people and children of Ireland. I do not have time to go into the statistics. We all know them and they are on the record. What is important to say is that nature is in dire straits and requires immediate large-scale intervention to avert extensive species extinction. Hen harriers have been mentioned as an iconic bird. There is a large amount of deterioration despite all of the conventions and despite all of the targets set.

In its wisdom the EPA looked at what was driving the loss of Irish habitat species in natural spaces. It listed agricultural activity, alien and invasive species, conversion of vegetated land to built land, extraction of resources and forestry. What it left out completely was Government and EU policies that have turned farming on its head over the years. The daftest policy was intervention and overproduction. If anything encapsulated the tautology of the European policy, it was intervention. This is not mentioned at all by the EPA. Neither is the elephant in the room, which is war and ongoing war. Whatever changes we try to make to stop climate change, war has to be stopped. We cannot have the two parallel things that do not go together.

Earlier in the debate the senior Minister spoke about the tears in his eyes when he saw the trawlers off Inishbofin. I totally agree with him. However, it is a very good policy to stop the sprat being taken out in an unsustainable manner. That is still going on unabated because of the foolishness of the Government in regard to the consultation process it carried out. Six year later they are still taking sprat out without any oversight and there is no policy in place.

The European Central Bank, that bastion of socialism - I say that tongue in cheek - tells us:

When ecosystems are degraded, they stop providing these services so nature restoration can be seen as an economic investment that yields a return. The EU estimates that for every €1 invested into nature restoration, this adds €8 to €38 in benefits to society.

That is the European Central Bank telling us this.

Humanity needs nature to survive, and so do the economy and banks. The more species become extinct, the less diverse are the ecosystems on which we rely. This presents a growing financial risk.

I referred tongue in cheek to "that bastion of socialism" because all of those institutions, including the EU, pushed unsustainable farming and unsustainable living and now the penny is dropping when we are on the verge of what I think is the sixth extinction. That is what it takes to get some action. It is a bit like the war in Gaza. It takes the deaths of 30,000 people.

I will finish up by mentioning some of the very good schemes. I again thank the Library and Research Service for the Bill digest. I am sure the Minister of State is very familiar with it. It lays out seven projects, and in finishing I want to raise the Danú Farming Group. It is a project that was set up to control and trial plots in the midlands to develop clear, workable guidelines for a transition programme to biological farming. There is a small group, a meitheal, there of 12 Danú farmers. The word "Danú" is interesting. It comes from a female goddess of nature.

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