Micheál Martin (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)

I certainly do not. Over the last number of years, I have taken a direct interest in the work of the NPWS and the biodiversity issue. We doubled the staff of the NPWS and we bought additional lands to transform into national parks. We now have a biodiversity officer in every local authority. When he was Minister of State, Senator Malcolm Noonan, did a lot of good work and I worked very well with him on this agenda.

I hear what the Deputy is saying regarding the centrality of the Department of agriculture but if it was left on its own, we might not get what he is looking for, and I do not mean that in an disparaging way as other stakeholders have to be involved as well. The EPA clearly has a role in terms of water quality and so on. The Minister of State in the Department of housing with responsibility for biodiversity has a clear role as well to pull this together. I will personally intervene to see if we can get an action plan put together to start the process of reversing this.

See this speech in context