Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I am sharing my time with Deputy Cormac Devlin.

Sometimes they say a Minister is well geared to his Ministry. There is no better Ministry for Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan than the one he has. I congratulate him on his new role. It is great to see him sitting on the Front Bench. Those who do not know Deputy O'Sullivan, or Christopher as we know him on this side, should note that when he is not here in the Dáil and has done his constituency work, he will climb over ditches and go along cliff paths to do something called twitching, which I did not know was a thing until two years ago. It is nothing illegal, by the way. He goes down sea paths looking for rare birds and then photographs and documents them. He eats, sleeps and drinks biodiversity, and it is great to have him leading the associated section of the Department. Best of luck to him in his role.

For all the passion the Minister of State has for biodiversity, I have a passion for history. This is linked to biodiversity because, in my home parish, or just behind it, is Cratloe Woods, which was once western Europe's most famous oakland. It had over 600 acres of prime oak trees – sessile oaks, the pride of Ireland. It was a forestry plantation that the British Navy looked at with envy. It looked at the battleships it could build. Indeed, the oak from Cratloe Woods was used to build HMS Victory and the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. Most famously, it was used in the period 1840 to 1857 to put a roof over the House of Commons. Therefore, when our counterparts in Britain were debating during the First World War, the Second World War and many other significant historical events, they were doing so under a roof of sessile oak grown in Cratloe, County Clare, a very special plantation. However, if you go there now, you will see conifers, including spruce and Scots pine. All the beautiful native trees have been taken. Of the 600 acres of the plantation, only about 40 or 50 acres have the native sessile oak. Some of them are on the border of my farm. I see how beautiful they are and the biodiversity that surrounds them. When you go deeper into the forest, where there are spruces and other conifers, you see no biodiversity.

I ask the Minister of State to lead an initiative in his Department to reinstate the sessile oak by growing it in nurseries again and replanting it. I am part of a local group that, in the autumn, collects some of the acorns, propagates them in little tubs and pots, and replants them in and around Cratloe. I would love to see the Minister of State lead this initiative. Why not? We do not have a big island and 600 acres is not a whole lot of land. Why not consider giving us back our heritage woods, which would far outlive the 30-year cycle of conifer trees? The latter just get felled. It is like a post-apocalyptic site when they are felled. We could have beautiful oaks that will outlast all of us and that some other generation will talk about here in many years to come.

Also on trees and the lack of biodiversity, in the 1980s people in Ireland became obsessed with the cypress tree. They are ugly, sprawling, green conifer trees that were very problematic during Storm Éowyn. It is time that we banned these trees. They are not a native species and they take over. Some say they can become invasive in woodlands, and they do not offer any biodiversity. They are damned dangerous when there is a storm or high winds blowing.

In the past year, I tweeted on a couple of occasions about how dirty our riverbeds can be when the tide goes out. I tweeted to Limerick city council. The tweet was a little embarrassing. It showed that, down in the depths of the river, there were trolleys and old bicycles. It was not the council's fault but it does of course have a role in keeping the area neat, tidy and cleaned up. The same applies in Dublin. Just as you go over the little cast-iron bridge at Heuston Station, you see the river is full of litter of all sorts. We may care about everything in the sky and everything that grows on land but we should also be looking at what is in our waters. It would be great if the Minister of State could write to some of the local authorities and ask them what they are doing to make sure that riverbeds are kept free of the debris and junk that are particularly visible when the tide is out, that whatever settles in the silt is taken from it and that biodiversity and nature can thrive again. All the junk in the river looks pretty ugly to tourists on the quayside at Heuston Station, Dublin. I do not know if our counterparts responsible for the River Thames in London or the River Seine in Paris would tolerate it. It is the same in Limerick and most big cities where there are tidal rivers. Local authorities could do more. Maybe a little nudge from Deputy O'Sullivan, as Minister of State, asking them what they are doing might prompt some of them to take action. Legislators should not be conducting business by putting out embarrassing little tweets. The following morning, you see local authority staff cleaning up the river. That is not how it should be done; it should be done on a proactive basis, not a reactive one. Best of luck to the Minister of State.

See this speech in context