Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Gabhaim buíochas as an deis chun caint faoin dlí athchóirithe nádúir. I am thankful for the opportunity to speak on the nature restoration law. I will be sharing time with the Minister, Deputy Ryan. I will take 15 minutes and he will take five.

As Minister of State with responsibility for nature, it is very important for me to hear the views of Deputies from across the House and to have an opportunity to engage in constructive and honest debate on what will, without doubt, be really transformative legislation for Ireland. The NRL is historic. It is the most powerful instrument for the protection and restoration of nature in 30 years. It is no secret that biodiversity is in steep decline and that nature needs our help. I am sure none of us in this House will disagree with the science in that regard. The nature restoration law presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to arrest and reverse that decline.

For people like me, environmentalists who have the luxury of putting their love of the natural world and all of the species within it at the forefront of their minds, it is a beacon of hope. However, I am keenly aware that for many others, particularly farmers, foresters and fishers, whose livelihoods depend on the use of our lands and seas and who do not have that same luxury, the nature restoration law might be a cause for significant concern. I want to tell those people that I am listening to them, that they will be engaged with, and that their voices will be heard and their concerns addressed.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I hate to interrupt the Minister of State but are copies of his script available?

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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I will get copies and send them across.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I think Members would like a copy.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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My officials are listening. I am sure they will get copies across now. Before I speak to my vision for the nature restoration law and the opportunities it represents for those individuals, their communities and the wider rural economy, I will deal with some of the misinformation that has been at play in this debate. That is what it has been: misinformation and, dare I say it, in some cases, scaremongering. In some other cases, there have also been deliberate attempts to whip up fear for what I can only assume is some narrow political gain. However, I acknowledge there have also been genuine concerns. Polarised debates such as those we have had in this House and in the media bring much heat but little in the way of light. I intend to use some of my time to shed light on the facts and, as I said at the outset, engage in a constructive and honest conversation.

On Tuesday evening, I sat down with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, to discuss the nature restoration law. We are united in our views and I would like to set out a number of points on the record for the benefit of everybody here. I want to be crystal clear on these. First, all nature restoration measures will be voluntary. There has been significant confusion as to whether the NRL is mandatory or not. It is mandatory for Ireland. The legal obligation to achieve the targets is on the member states. It is Ireland that will be in court if we do not comply. However, participation in restoration measures is voluntary for individual landowners.

2 o’clock

The legislation is explicit on this in relation to rewetting, but participation in relation to wider restoration measures is a national competency. The Government is clear that all restoration measures will be voluntary. It is up to the Government to make the participation an attractive proposition. Rewetting targets have been softened compared with the original draft of the nature restoration law. What is more, member states can determine for themselves what rewetting means in practice. This includes at national, regional or sectoral levels. The Government is confident that the 2030 and 2040 rewetting targets, at a minimum, can be met entirely on State lands. This is worth repeating: we are confident that the 2030 and 2040 targets can be met on State lands. More analysis is needed to establish how far we can go towards the 2050 rewetting targets on public land. It is important, however, to point to a further caveat that allows member states heavily affected by rewetting obligations to determine lower targets in certain circumstances.

The situation around restoration measures and CAP payments was confirmed by Commissioner Sinkevičius in a letter to Billy Kelleher MEP this week. I will confirm that situation again: the nature restoration law “neither interferes with nor amends” CAP payment rules. In the CAP regulations under Recital 16 it is clear that the area eligible for direct payments is not reduced when subject to certain requirements relating to environmental protection, and remains eligible for direct payments. Key in this regard is confusion around the definition of “condition”. The “condition” of habitats and ecosystems is very different to agricultural “condition”. The former relates to ecological assessments as defined in the habitats directive, whereas the latter relates to good agricultural environment conditions under the CAP regulations. I can confirm that restoration measures will not negatively impact on any existing CAP payments, or on any other scheme or incentive delivered by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The Government is committed to ensuring that nature restoration provides additional income streams for those who choose to participate. Schemes will be well incentivised and, crucially, designed in partnership with all stakeholders over the next two years as part of the nature restoration planning process. Farmers’ expertise will be called on to help to shape these schemes. I thank the Fay family in County Westmeath. I was there this morning and have the muck on my heels to prove it. They are doing work on the farming for water European innovation project. I was there with my colleagues, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue and the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. There is fantastic work going on around the country.

For funding, the legislation commits the EU to assessing the level of funding required to implement the nature restoration law, and to conducting an overview of financial resources available. The Irish Government will support the Commission in these assessments. As Members will be aware, we have already announced a €3.15 billion climate and nature fund. This fund will support the implementation of the nature restoration law. The potential for private funding will also be explored. It is often missed in conversations on the nature restoration law that tens of thousands of Irish farmers are already volunteering to take part in nature restoration schemes. It is happening up and down the country. I have met with many of the farmers who are involved in these schemes. Some 46,000 farmers are part of the ACRES programme, on both ACRES general and the co-operation projects. An additional 9,000 farmers were accepted onto this scheme today. Again I thank my colleague, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, for fighting for this. It is a really welcome development. More than 3,200 farmers are participating in European innovation partnerships, EIPs. This number will increase significantly as two new large-scale EIPs for water and breeding waders come on stream, which I launched with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. More than 1,200 farmers are already taking part in LIFE programmes and over 300 are involved in the National Parks and Wildlife Service farm plan scheme. I have visited many of these schemes over the past years. They are doing really wonderful work already in restoring nature.

We will build on what works, and improve it, to give farmers the confidence to get involved. For the Deputies, and anyone else who is listening today, I hope it will be clear from what I have said that farmers have nothing to fear from the nature restoration law. If anything, this law has the potential to bring substantial opportunities. By working together and listening to each other we can ensure that implementation at farm level is harmonious and beneficial in the context of food production. Ultimately, food production and healthy nature depend on one another. Their fortunes in Ireland are entirely intertwined. Future generations of farmers, and indeed future generations in Ireland as a whole, will have their livelihoods, their health and their well-being severely diminished if we carry on down the path we have been travelling. Change is urgently needed.

It is understandable that with change comes uncertainty. As Minister of State with responsibility for the birds and habitats directives, I know all too well the history of nature conservation in Ireland and the challenges experienced by many farmers. I understand the fear of designations, the complex layer of bureaucracy introduced into day-to-day farming, and the challenges of working the land and the seas in those contexts. I understand the fear of land being devalued. As I understand those things, I am able to give the House a firm commitment today that we have learned from the mistakes of the past. There are no designations under the nature restoration law. The director general of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Niall Ó Donnchú, confirmed this today in the Irish Farmers’ Journal. We will hear everyone’s views. We will ensure that measures are workable at farm level, are supported by good guidance and advice, and bring real benefits for nature and for people.

Let us be clear here: people want this, young people want it and the Irish public want it. It is not just my voters who want it; it is other Members' voters too. Nature is something that motivates and inspires everyone - young, old, urban, rural, office workers, shop workers and farm workers. I have never met a single person who has told me they do not care about nature in some way or another. I believe this is why the nature restoration law has been brought about with such an enormous groundswell of support from right across society. This has been reflected across government too. Ireland has been utterly consistent in its support for the nature restoration law. Our coalition partners deserve significant credit for this, particularly the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, who has truly led from the front. Our colleagues in Europe - our MEPs and particularly our Fine Gael MEPs - were pivotal in bringing the nature restoration law to this point. Their decision to support it will be long remembered. I believe we can say that without Ireland and without the leadership of the Irish Government and Irish MEPs, Europe would not have a nature restoration law. If this is not a powerful indication of just how seriously Ireland takes the biodiversity crisis, I do not know what is. It is baffling then that Sinn Féin, which voted in favour of nature restoration in the Dáil, which supported the nature restoration law in the previous European Parliament vote, and which frequently says it is committed to climate and biodiversity action, should backtrack so spectacularly, but I guess that is what it does.

The Government is on the right side of history on this one. Our attention now turns to the development of our national nature restoration plan over the next 24 months. It is up to each member state to decide how it will achieve the obligations under the nature restoration law. These obligations are expansive, covering multiple policy areas and a wide array of habitats, species and ecosystems: agricultural ecosystems with targets for farmland birds, grassland butterflies, high-diversity landscape features, cropland mineral soils and rewetting of peat soils; forest ecosystems, with targets for increasing trends of standing and lying deadwood, uneven aged forests, forest connectivity, forest birds, and a contribution to an EU-wide ambition to plant 3 billion trees by 2030; river ecosystems, with targets for restoring natural flood plain functions and removing artificial barriers; urban ecosystems, where we will increase green spaces and tree canopy cover; marine ecosystems, with targets to restore habitats and achieve good environmental status; and restoration targets for all of the listed habitats and species under the EU nature directives, which are our most precious places for nature across terrestrial, coastal and freshwater ecosystems throughout the State. It is indeed a huge task.

In my Department, work has already started to develop Ireland’s nature restoration planning process. Led by an independent chair, this process will comprise a series of interactive workshops on three key themes: land, marine and urban environments. I am clear that this will not be an ordinary public consultation. It will be based on principles of participation and co-creation. I believe this approach, which puts people at the centre and values diverse perspectives, is vital if the nature restoration law is to be a positive force for change. We cannot shy away from the fact that developing the plan will be an enormous challenge. Two years is not long to do all of the work that is needed. We must quantify and map areas to be restored; set the baseline from which progress can be measured; identify and develop measures and actions for inclusion in the plan; develop schemes and programmes to enhance the delivery; outline timescales, monitoring requirements and financing needs; and capture and represent the requirements of strategic partners and stakeholders. Then we have to implement it. I see the implementation of the nature restoration law and Ireland’s efforts to reverse years of nature loss as one of our most important national projects for the coming decades. It is our meitheal mór.

Healthy nature is our first and best line of defence against climate change. The resilience brought about by restored natural ecosystems will help us to withstand the worst effects of extreme weather, floods and droughts. As our population grows, more of us will be looking for ways to get away from screens, disconnect from the digital world, and get out into the fresh air where we can get our hands dirty. Action for nature is good for us, for our physical health, for our peace of mind, and for our overall well-being.

It also gives us a sense of hope that the future is something we have the power to make not just less bad but actively better. While much of the debate has been focused on farmers, this really is about everybody. There is a role for all of us in restoring nature. Ní neart go cur le chéile agus ní mór do gach éinne a bheith taobh thiar den ghluaiseacht seo. Tá an nádúr ag fanacht linn, tá ár bpáistí ag breathnú orainn agus tá na glúnta atá le teacht ag brath orainn.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I join my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, in very much welcoming the historical decision to proceed with the nature restoration law in Europe. It is desperately needed because our natural systems are in absolute distress. They are under great pressure. In the past 50 years we have lost half of all wildlife in the natural world by invertebrate body mass weight. This is not just the headline fauna and the animals that attract all the interest, but it is in insect life, bird life and everywhere.

Throughout our world we have seen the destruction of the natural world. It is a natural world where the use of pesticides and fungicides, pollution, overextraction and the removal of nature are widespread. They are destroying the fabric of the natural and ecological systems on which we depend. We all have examples of it. Anyone of a certain age can notice the difference and can see it happening in our own country. The personification of it for me was last summer when I was out on a kayak in the west of Ireland. I saw two trawlers follow the coast. They were inshore, hugging the coast, with a ginormous net scooping up every single minnow and sprat and every bit of wildlife and natural systems. For what? It was probably to convert into fish food to feed to salmon in cages. I watched the two trawlers as they went from near Roonagh around to Slyne Head. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows the area. Someone said to me last week they saw the same thing in west Cork. They were crying at the tragedy of what is happening to our commons and our natural systems.

Nature is also under threat because of climate change. We have three ecological crises unfolding at the one time. These are the loss of nature, climate change caused by our actions and the widespread pollution of our waterways, airways and natural systems. In addressing climate change, we can address the degradation of our natural world at the same time. Specifically under the Government we have a real opportunity because one of the most critical mechanisms we are using to address it is probably the land use review we are engaged in. This can feed in, support, complement and enhance the nature restoration law we now need to implement. I believe it needs to be done over the next two years.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Correct.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The timelines are roughly similar. To go back to what the Minister of State said, this review of land is not to tell an individual farmer or forester this is what they must do or else. It is to try to get an assessment of what is happening and to try to make sure we align our incentives with rural development, the future of farming and the protection of the natural world and system.

The scale of change is not small. We made a great change in this country in going from only 1% or 2% forestry cover at the foundation of the State to 11% today. It is no fault of anyone, and I am not putting the blame on anyone, but those forest systems were put in the wrong place. Typically they were put up high on the mountains where we were draining peaty soils. The nature of the forestry, involving clear fell, monoculture and fast-rotation cycles, does not enhance nature. It does not improve water quality. It does not protect and encourage biodiversity. This needs to change. The Minister of State, Senator Hackett, has started an initiative under the new forestry programme that puts nature centre stage.

With regard to farming, I echo what the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has said. I see nothing but opportunity for this in the Irish farming community. The current system does not serve the vast majority of farmers in terms of income or certainty for the future. When I was reading the newspapers this morning, I was encouraged to see signs of the green shoots that we have every day in our country. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has expanded further access to the ACRES programme. It was massively oversubscribed beyond what anyone expected. Almost half of Irish farmers must now be in the ACRES system with the further extension today. This is a sign that the false narrative of environment versus agriculture is not the future. The vast majority of Irish farmers understand this, as can be seen by engagement in the likes of the ACRES programme.

We are starting to change in the three major areas of forestry, pastureland and wetlands. I would cite Bord na Móna as the best example of a country going from brown to green. We have already rehabilitated 13,000 ha of bogland. When we visit the rehabilitated areas it is fascinating to see how quickly nature comes back when it is managed using the same skills as used to extract the peat. Suddenly we notice nature thriving. For the first time in 300 years cranes are coming back to our midlands waterways. We have everything to gain from this. People get their reward from the stored carbon as well as the restored nature.

Critical to how we do this and to the politics of this is that it is on a collaborative basis. It is about working with local communities, forestry, farming and nature lovers throughout the country. It is also critical that we admit there is uncertainty. The climate change assessment on land use keeps changing. We only really discovered in recent years the downside of the forestry programme. We had to amend our plans at the last minute to adjust to what the science was telling us . Even more recently Teagasc came out with very useful analysis showing a significant change in the amount of land already storing carbon because it is not as drained as people previously thought. We should admit uncertainty as we start devising our plan. We should admit that we have to learn by doing. No one has the magic secret formula and no one will tell anyone else what the exact approach is. It is by collaboration and co-operation that we will make this leap.

I commend the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. The work he has done on this has been significant. He said that the Irish Government, the Irish Parliament and the European Parliament were won over on this because of the Irish votes, and this is true, but much of the credit goes to him in terms of how it has been presented and how we have approached it in the Government. I was proud to be a member of the European Council when it was discussed, debated and agreed. I was fascinated to see those political parties that opposed it suddenly started to hear the silent majority, which we do not hear, saying they do not want nature destruction and they want it to return. They changed their votes. Unfortunately others changed back again. Those Irish MEP votes that really did win the day were because the Irish people buy into this. In every county, parish and community they understand the desire to restore nature.

I will mention my local river and parish in Milltown. I am old enough to remember the Dodder being utterly polluted. It was not known as Milltown for no reason. It was an industrial river where we did a lot of our manufacturing and processing of chemicals. As a child I remember that sections of the river were white with ammonia. It was completely dead. It had been killed. Now if we walk that river we see dippers, herons, kingfishers and otters. It is incredible that when we allow nature to restore itself it does it in a dramatic and very quick way. This should give us real confidence and hope for restoring our communities.

This is a global problem but we should bring it back to a local level. By doing this it means it not only has an economic benefit and fulfils European regulations, but it involves pride of place. It brings a sense of joy and a sense of connection. Ultimately it is also about our security on the planet which is in deep peril. We cannot speak about nature without noticing and commenting on the fact that in the past year global sea temperatures have gone off the dial. They have completely jumped. In the past month CO2 concentration has risen 4 parts per million.

February was the warmest month ever but by measures that were off the scale. That reality is also going to put nature under stress, and it will further challenge us. We need to act fast with the nature restoration law that we have here in everything we do to secure our future and to maintain the wonder that is in the world.

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on the protection and restoration of nature and the need to make progress in Ireland. Sinn Féin completely supports and prioritises the need to protect, restore, and enhance nature. The scale of the crisis that confronts biodiversity cannot and should not be understated.

Sinn Féin's rejection last week of the nature restoration law was not a rejection of the intent and purpose of the law. We must work to protect the complex interconnected ecosystem that is the beating heart of our economy and society. However, without concrete funding measures, our efforts will fall short. We simply cannot afford to get this wrong. From my perspective, last week the question was framed incorrectly. For us in Sinn Féin the question of whether we should do this has already been clearly answered. Rather than asking whether we should do it, instead we should be asking how we do this. We know that the Government's propensity to set targets without a dedicated, detailed and resourced roadmap for how to get there is no way to do business. It is certainly no way to ensure success. This was made abundantly clear by the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, which pointed out that the Government has comprehensively failed to adequately fund, implement and enforce existing national legislation, national policies, EU biodiversity-related laws and directives. Simply paying lip service to something in theory at a multilateral level far removed from the lived realities means very little when it comes to translating these lofty ambitions into practice. It has to work in reality. It has to work on the ground and with the people who will be charged with carrying out these measures.

Now that the nature restoration law has been passed by the European Parliament, it is incumbent on legislators to ensure the right supports are put in place to aid the achievement of our nature and climate targets. We therefore believe that a dedicated, ambitious funding stream should be put in place at European and national level to support the delivery of these vital biodiversity targets while protecting and enhancing the incomes of workers on the front line of nature restoration. We need a just transition. In Sinn Féin, we believe it is critical that the value we place on our ecosystems is reflected in how we resource this transition. This is the reason we proposed the establishment of a dedicated nature restoration fund in our alternative budget, alongside a suite of other measures, including the expansion of publicly owned and accessible green spaces and natural areas, increased investment in afforestation and in urban green spaces, the expansion and restoration of national parks, and increased funding to develop skills and expertise in biodiversity at local and national level.

In addition, we support having increased funding for local authorities, the establishment of a fund for native woodlands, increased funding for the Irish Environmental Network and increased resourcing for environmental NGOs, the expansion and restoration of national parks and increasing the resourcing of biodiversity skills for staff in An Bord Pleanála and MARA. In addition, Sinn Féin would invest in horticultural farming and, as per the recommendation of the citizens' assembly, would establish a peer-to-peer scheme for farmers working to protect and restore nature.

Partnership, collaboration and engagement must be part of the process. Those who are impacted the most require certainty that they will not be the collateral damage in this process. The Minister acknowledged that many who have done a lot of heavy lifting in the past are bruised by that experience. The work of preparing the national restoration plan will be hugely important. There needs to be commitment in terms of funding and support.

The Minister referred to the climate fund. We heard clearly from farmers and rural communities that they are concerned that in the first instance the fund is away out in the future, post 2026, and only relates to capital investment. The detail of that must be spelled out. We must ensure that it supports practical measures to restore nature. In our firm opinion, it needs to happen now. It is incumbent upon us to bridge gaps and reach mutual understanding as we respond to this crucial challenge. We in Sinn Féin absolutely believe that restoring nature and protecting our indigenous industries can and must go hand in hand. Now is the time to work together and put in place a pathway to nature restoration that delivers for our workers and our planet.

Sinn Féin believes that the State has a key role to play and can lead the way. This Government cannot expect family farms and rural communities to make changes that the Government itself is unwilling to make. All in all, we know this is an urgent issue. It cannot be ignored. We need strategies that do not kowtow to wealthy vested interests that have powerful influence. It suits some vested interests to create a divide between rural and urban, but we must reject this false dichotomy because the evidence shows that regardless of where they live, people care about the environment and recognise the need to restore nature. We must be sure to have nuanced and informed discussions that are grounded in fact, science and the experience and knowledge of stakeholders. We must not be led by misinformation and by the pursuit of profit. What is needed now is collaborative and decisive action that encompasses farmers and rural communities as key allies. By supporting them in the transition, respecting their knowledge, grounding the process in science and fact and addressing the socioeconomic challenges that may arise, we can and will find a way forward. Our future and that of future generations depends on it.

Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak on the nature restoration law and, as my party spokesperson on agriculture, to very clearly outline our position. In recent days I have been quite bemused at the reaction to our vote in the European Parliament. From the very first discussion on the proposed nature restoration law at EU level, we engaged proactively at every point. We met the farm organisations and we submitted amendments at EU level at every single opportunity available to us - unlike some other MEPs - and we engaged constructively. We did not sit back and say we do not like this, nor did we scaremonger. I have listened to what the Minister said about scaremongering about the CAP and voluntary measures, but at no stage did we scaremonger on any of those issues. I did not do so, and nor would I.

We set out five red lines at EU level through amendments. I set them out here last year in an amendment to a motion when this topic was previously discussed in the House. We also set them out in press releases several times. In fact, we could not have been any clearer. We looked for specific, dedicated funding; for measures to be voluntary, not mandatory; for there to be widespread public participation; for a socioeconomic assessment; and for compensation. I acknowledge that some of that has been included and I welcome it. I also recall a press release from a colleague last June in which he welcomed changes that we had achieved at EU level. They included a compensation scheme for farmers and a new chapter on funding, including a mandate for a permanent dedicated nature restoration fund outside of the CAP. When the text came before the European Parliament in July, we were satisfied that our red lines were met. We were particularly glad that an amendment we proposed on compensation was included in the text. It referred to "the financial compensation of potential losses by landowners and land managers directly due to the implementation of this Regulation".

This was a key amendment, as the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, will be aware, because he attended a meeting that I also attended with farmers from the midlands who came here last year. They were particularly concerned at possible implications for their land due to rewetting by Bord na Móna in their area. That amendment was extremely important for us. In July, we were very satisfied with the inclusion of the amendment to the text that I outlined. However, the text last week in the European Parliament included nothing to do with funding or compensation. In fact, the part on compensation had been totally removed.

As my party spokesperson on agriculture, I met farmers and heard that they wanted compensation. We agreed to propose an amendment in that regard and we worked with them on it.

When I saw the text last week, I was certainly not going to say that compensation is not there but never mind, it is grand, we will support it anyway. I would not do that. The amendment was there and brought forward in good faith but it disappeared from the text last week. I make no apology for our vote last week, nor would I be concerned with criticism, especially from across the floor, of our vote. I do not see how we could expect an MEP, who worked, put in amendments and had achievements in that regard, to support the law when the text that emerged last week was different to the text the MEP supported in July. Frankly, there would be no point in having red lines in the first place.

Funding is also important. Many more than those in Sinn Féin said that funding was needed. It needed to be dedicated, long-term funding from the EU and it should come to accompany what is a major and ambitious plan in respect of nature restoration. The EU has missed an opportunity here at a time when farmers are fed up about the red tape and the many regulations coming from Europe. We know many farmers have been protesting this very issue. The EU had an opportunity to say that while it is asking farmers to do more, it will financially back them to do it. That was not there. Instead, it is heaping more work on the farmers and stating that we will look at funding after 2027. That is not good enough. Nothing was stopping that text from stating that there would be a commitment to funding under the next multi-annual financial framework, MFF but that commitment was not forthcoming. I would have genuine fears for when the next MFF comes up. We know that one country alone can block funding on any issue and I would have genuine concerns that may be the case post 2027.

I will take the opportunity to raise an issue that has been brought to our attention by the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association. It has raised an issue with another change from the text that was there in July when the new text appeared last week. The text now reads that member states should prioritise restoration measures on those Natura 2000 sites up to 2030. Of course, these are the farmers who are already doing the most in respect of nature restoration. They are the ones who are hugely restricted in how they farm their lands. They already feel enormously let down at the level of support they receive for farming in designated areas. Regardless of all of that, we say to them that we support their being prioritised and doing more when there is no funding from Europe to do it. I do not think that is fair. I ask the Minister of State to consider that point carefully in the context of our national plan. I welcome the fact that widespread engagement will take place with farm organisations and others as part of this.

I also think it is important that the issue raised by the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, OPW, Deputy O'Donovan, in respect of flooding and future possible impacts on flood-relief schemes is looked at by the Government. It should be responded to by the Government. That would be important. I think of Lough Funshinagh in my constituency, where another house is about to go under. Pumps are just about keeping water away from that home but because it is a so-called special area of conservation, nothing will be done in the next few years to help that community as their homes go under. Some homes have already been lost. The decision has been taken to prioritise a special area of conservation that is dying on its feet. There is nothing now living in that area of conservation. The National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, has not been out on the ground despite telling the EU Commission otherwise. It is groups and issues such as those that we need to ensure this has no impact on. I was concerned by what the Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, had to say in that regard. The Government should respond and give communities some clarification.

Now that the law has passed, it is essential that the farm organisations are brought around the table and that there is as widespread consultation as possible. It is essential that farmers will take part and some farmers will be very happy to do so. The voluntary nature is well and good but if there are implications for neighbouring lands, as was the case for the farmers in the midlands that the Minister of State and I both met last year, compensation is important. The Minister of State will recall that those farmers from the midlands were not looking for money but were looking for Bord na Móna to commit to carrying out remedial works should there be any impact on their lands. That was a basic and fair request, and it should be considered again by the Government.

Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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The climate and biodiversity crises stand among the greatest challenges facing humanity. Action is needed and there are two ways in which we can try to take those necessary actions. We can either do so in collaboration with communities, workers, farmers and other affected sectors or we can try a top-down approach, finger-pointing, condescension and the imposition of measures with little regard for those who will be affected. This Government has repeatedly chosen the latter route. It is failing. For all their talk, the Green Party, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have missed virtually every target that they set in respect of climate and biodiversity. Almost every measure is seen to be aimed at penalising local communities and ordinary citizens. There is virtually no collaboration or engagement and there is no sign whatsoever that Ireland or the EU is making any meaningful or positive difference. Instead, we have antagonised communities and Irish family farmers are fearful for their future. The EU nature restoration law is a perfect example. Sure who would be against nature restoration? It is as if the title itself should be enough to demand support. The amount of commentary that I have heard from people who clearly did not follow the progression of the EU legislation, who certainly did not understand the different stages of its passage or read the final text, is staggering. The level of snobbery from people in areas that will not be affected by its implementation towards those who will be and who have real and genuine concerns is breathtaking. I am proud that Sinn Féin stands for meaningful action and working in collaboration with those who will be affected by the measures, rather than joining in with a European Parliament consensus that seeks to demonise and ignore them.

We support the restoration of nature. It is imperative. If it is done right, rural communities can benefit. However, it cannot just be about setting targets and hoping for the best and at the last minute, imposing measures to reach those targets. That has been the reality of implementing EU directives thus far. Targets must be accompanied by a plan and that plan has to be developed in partnership with those who will be affected and not forced on them. The necessary funding for initiatives, incentives and supports should be in place at the beginning of a plan and not at some undefined point in the future. The absence of that plan and funding was the reason why Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus rightly voted against the file that was presented to the European Parliament last week. There should be no surprise whatsoever at the position adopted by Sinn Féin. The real unanswered question is how Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael MEPs supported a proposal that was flawed and lacked the concrete funding measures that are absolutely essential to the restoration of the complex and interconnected ecosystems on which we all depend.

It is ironic that the farmers who will be affected the most by the approach adopted by the European Parliament are the poorest farmers in Ireland. They are also the ones who are most eager to play a positive and constructive role in climate action and biodiversity. They are farmers who, for example, use the least amount of artificial fertilisers and pesticides. They have the lowest stocking rates and the greatest levels of biodiversity on their farms already. These are the farmers who know they have a part to play in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises. The starting point should be to acknowledge the incredible work that many of them have already done in producing among the safest, and certainly the highest quality, food in the world within the most stringent environmental standards on the planet. Much more needs to be done. I do not know a single farmer who does not acknowledge that or believes that standards will not or should not continue to rise. The challenge for those of us in public life is to put in place the framework that allows farmers to succeed while doing what is necessary for climate and biodiversity. This Government and the European Union are failing in providing that framework. This Government in particular is very good at setting ambitions targets but is atrocious at meeting them. Nobody and no purpose is served by that approach. It does not serve farmers and the rural communities that depend on them or the environment. The Government approach all too often amounts to hypocrisy, double standards and lecturing. Let me be clear that Sinn Féin absolutely supports a nature restoration law but it will not support just any nature restoration law and especially not one that will potentially drive small, family beef and sheep farmers out of existence for no purpose. The proposal before the European Parliament last week failed to commit the funding and safeguards necessary to deliver the environmental ambition without impoverishing farmers or affecting Irish regions, particularly in the west.

Those who supported the European Parliament's nature restoration law say they want nature restoration but it appears that they want farmers to pay for it. This is the approach that has failed time and again. Perhaps if these same family farmers had not been failed by every single iteration of the Common Agricultural Policy for at least the past decade, they might have come to this issue with a different perspective but the truth is that we have been asking farmers to do much more while providing them with fewer supports in real terms every year. We now have a climate action plan that expects farmers to do more with no additional supports. This nature restoration law expects farmers to do more but, again, with no guarantee of additional support.

Instead we are met again today with the dishonesty of a Government that still pretends that farmers are receiving a benefit from the carbon taxes, of which they pay more than anyone else, instead of the reality that any new funding stream is just supplanting streams that were already removed. The parties of Government and the EU have stated that climate is a policy priority but they simply have not made funding that policy a priority.

Sinn Féin secured changes to the nature restoration law that ensured that financial supports, including compensation, would be available to farmers negatively affected. We supported the law at that stage on that basis but those gains were lost during the trilogue negotiations with the sign off from this Government. Earlier, the Minister essentially said that the Government is going to support the nature restoration law regardless of the changes that are made. When those gains and safeguards for Irish family farmers were lost, so too was Sinn Féin's support because we approach this issue knowing that it is imperative that we succeed in the full knowledge that the stated objectives can only be delivered with a plan that is devised in collaboration with those who will be affected. That is why it has been us, and nobody else in this House, who have introduced proposals to protect and restore nature, including the establishment of a dedicated nature restoration fund. This is why we remain committed to delivering nature restoration in partnership with rural communities and family farmers because it simply will not happen otherwise.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I welcome our visitors to the Public Gallery. This discussion is particularly pertinent to their future.

Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour)
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I also welcome our visitors in the Public Gallery. I can see that they are all watching and listening intently because what we are debating here today is about our collective future.

On Tuesday, last, 27 February, we witnessed an historic vote in the European Parliament. MEPs in Strasbourg voted to approve the first-ever nature restoration law. It is the first new major EU biodiversity law since the 1992 habitats directive. There has been much conjecture about the purpose of this legislation - both from the climate change deniers and what are described as the climate change tolerators. Undoubtedly, this has caused confusion and some panic. However, the nature restoration law’s aims are simple. It aims to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all its ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050.

Because it often goes unmentioned in this House as many European Parliament dynamics do, I hasten to add that the approval of legally binding targets to restore nature is a testament to the commitment of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats to environmental causes. We in the Labour Party are proud and glad to commend César Luena, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats MEP from our sister party in Spain and chief negotiator on the nature restoration law, on his hard work and commitment in seeing this vital law passed. The groundbreaking nature restoration law addresses not only the loss of biodiversity but also contributes significantly to combating climate change, enhancing agricultural resilience and meeting international commitments.

We are not in ordinary times. A total of 81% of Europe’s assessed natural habitats are in poor condition. We are witnessing ecological collapse and are living through an extinction event. Human-driven changes are seeing the world get worse not better. That is true even here in Ireland where our geography often spares us from seeing with our own eyes the scariest consequences of these changes. The songs of corncrakes, hen harriers and curlews have slowly gone silent in many areas where once they were heard. Algae covered Lough Neagh, poisoning local wildlife and endangering human health. We see native tree species struggling for space. It falls on us to change that.

I believe in the power of politics to make pivotal and transformational change. Politics and collective action are two of humanity’s greatest inventions. While often debate on the biodiversity and climate crisis can tend towards misanthropy and misinformed outrage, I think it is worth seizing on hope. There is hope and we all have agency. We must realise the power we have as individual citizens, as activists, as communities and indeed as a State because all is not lost. Such negative and fatalistic thinking serves no one. Humans are social animals. While we are undoubtedly capable of damaging the world around us, we do have agency and we can fix things. That is without question. We can protect our world and help it to flourish but only through collaboration. The unity displayed by our own political grouping in the European Parliament in getting the nature restoration law over the line showcases the importance of working together to achieve ambitious environmental goals.

Honesty, dedication and a unified commitment to tackling climate and ecological breakdown constitute the minimum that is required if we are to avert disaster. Unfortunately, it does not yet look as though we have arrived at that point of consensus. That failure leaves everyone worse off not least those from an agricultural background who were told to cultivate land and steer their business in a particular way and are now being told that they must do it another way. We must resource and assist them to change. Those who need a just transition most are most deserving of honesty from their political representatives and to be fair, we get that honesty from the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and his colleagues because it is clear that adaptations are needed. Those who are being asked to help that process along deserve leadership from those making the ask and they are getting that leadership. They deserve honesty from everyone in this House.

After some dithering last year, it was positive to see the two largest parties in Government decide to support the legislation. I do not think it would be fair to attack Government TDs for doing the right thing. However, particularly coming up to European elections, voters deserve to know what they are supporting if they vote for Fine Gael notwithstanding the decision by five Irish European People’s Party MEPs. The European People's Party, EPP, which is the group to which Fine Gael belongs in the European Parliament, opposed the nature restoration law. Let us not forget that last July, EPP MEPs submitted amendments for a total boycott of the legislation. They were joined by the European Conservatives and Reformists as well as the far-right Identity and Democracy groups in the Parliament, which tabled amendments calling for the legislation to be rejected entirely. We understand that Fine Gael MEPs faced down that not inconsiderable pressure from within the EPP to support those boycott efforts and that is to their credit. Those Fine Gael MEPs did choose to engage with the process, which is a welcome departure from the very dangerous rhetoric we have seen from their EPP colleagues, notably the EPP president Manfred Weber. While Fine Gael MEPs did support the vote, there are serious concerns about that centre-right grouping’s approach to protecting our planet’s future. The EPP is not only content to coalesce with the climate-denying far right, it actually courts those parties in an attempt to consolidate power. It is true that Fine Gael has sought to censure some of the most sinister elements of its European grouping such as Viktor Orbán's membership prior to his leaving in 2021. However, the grouping as a whole routinely stands in the way of the kind of progress we need to see. The leader of the EPP Manfred Weber, who the EPP initially sought to make Chief Commissioner of the EU, embarked on what can only be described as a personal crusade to kill the nature restoration law. He was even accused to spreading disinformation - this from the leader of the group in the Parliament. That bad policy and those alliances with the hard right do not represent a fringe element in the EPP. They come from the very top and we need to be conscious of that in terms of the European elections and who we choose to send to represent us in those significant European groupings.

Notwithstanding the important vote we are debating, it is one of many new measures that will be needed. An alliance of the right and far right after the elections in June is a clear threat to environmental progress. It would be disingenuous to highlight the skeletons in the Government’s closet alone. I have been deeply concerned by some of the actions of those in Opposition. It was mentioned earlier, and some of them responded while others from the Independent ranks will respond later.

Many in those ranks have sought to undermine climate and biodiversity action at every opportunity by utilising dog-whistles and straw man arguments to sow distrust and conspiracy theories. Farmers and those in rural Ireland will need strong representation and advocacy to get that much-needed just transition I spoke of earlier, but they deserve to get it from those with their true best interests at heart. There will be no room for small farmers in the event of ecological collapse. Business will become completely unsustainable, except for those with the deepest of pockets. More supports are needed to bolster a move towards sustainable farming. Standing in the way of measures to make our country more sustainable, however, are short-term solutions to a problem which stands to have dire short-, medium- and long-term impacts.

It was also deeply alarming to witness Sinn Féin's MEP voting against this critical legislation in the European Parliament. For some hours on Tuesday, it seemed that the party could not decide its position. One European election candidate celebrated the passage of the nature restoration law after Sinn Féin's only sitting MEP had voted against it. It used to be the case that Sinn Féin in government in the North would do one thing and then say something different down here. Now, if its members want to represent Dublin, they say one thing; if they are representing a more rural area, they vote the complete opposite on something. This is quite extraordinary. It is not the first time Sinn Féin has displayed a somewhat wavering commitment, putting it mildly, to climate action.

As we know, the party also opposes carbon tax, despite the UN stating that the taxing of carbon emissions would be central to getting global warming under control. At a time when urgent action is needed to address climate and biodiversity breakdown, the planet and all the species living here deserve courage. Most of all, though, they deserve honesty and leadership from their politicians. We can bring about equitable solutions to this challenge, ones which do reduce inequality and provide business opportunities sustainably, rather than increasing pressure on our planet. How would we feel if we thought the environment around us was in danger to such a degree that the plants and animals we no longer notice around us were gone? That is the future facing us and the generations to come. The passage of the nature restoration law marked significant and very welcome progress and it is something we can build on. The cost of failing to do so will be just too high. It is existential and fundamental.

Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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Last week, the national restoration law passed in Brussels. I was listening to the Minister of State's speech in my office. He said we have 24 months now to get what we need in place for this measure to work effectively. I will be working closely with him during these 24 months to ensure that farmers are not the ones who pay for nature restoration. I was interested to hear the Minister of State say that we made mistakes with designation in the past. That is most definitely the case.

In my county, significant areas of land are designated. The capital value of that land has been completely decimated. In my experience, I have never seen landowners or property owners that this was allowed to happen to before. The litmus test of nature restoration for rural Ireland will be if the capital value of this land is maintained. We must make sure that this happens. When the hen harrier designation commenced in my county, a scheme was brought in that was relatively attractive for the landowners. For the first three or four years, they got a reasonable payment for the designation of their land, but then that payment dried up to a trickle. They have now been left with a very small payment, which increases slightly where they have nesting hen harriers. The blanket ban on forestry in those areas has decimated the value of these farmers' land. We cannot allow this to happen with nature restoration. We will be watching closely.

We talk here about food security and what Europe is going to do in the area of sustainable food production. I refer to talking to farmers out on the ground. In the last couple of weeks, Brazil has announced it is going to increase its level of beef production by 20% by 2027. This will come at the expense of the rainforest. China is increasing domestic production of food significantly, especially in the context of dairy. Those countries are not looking at emissions or climate change. They are only concerned with food security and driving forward domestic food production. I am not saying we do not produce sustainable food. We do, by all means, but we cannot blind ourselves to what is happening in the rest of the world. We must be seriously concerned that there is not a universal global policy as regards the sustainability of food production. This is most definitely not happening now. As we debate this matter this evening, Europe is most definitely the pioneer in this regard, but the rest of the world is just as definitely not following this lead.

Turning to the rewetting of land, will farmers whose land is adjacent to a rewetting project get a written guarantee that the level of the water table on their land will not be impacted? I have met representatives of numerous farmers' groups who are extremely worried in this regard, especially about Bord na Móna's land. This is because commercial farmers have holdings adjacent to that land. If the Bord na Móna land is rewet, will it have an impact on the water table level of these farmers' lands? If it will, that will take away the economic viability of such holdings. These farmers have been looking for this written guarantee for several years but it has not been forthcoming. In the 24 months we now have to get protocols in place for nature restoration, this is an issue that most definitely must be addressed. Many cattle are being produced in upland areas as well, particularly in the context of our suckler herd. There is also a great deal of sheep production. We have promoted organic sheep production on our hills and we have secured a significant niche market for these products. Again, this type of production is bound to be impacted by this nature restoration law and compensation must also be in place in this regard.

The rewetting of areas is obviously going to be a significant part of nature restoration. We have a policy now, though, of a lack of maintenance of our rivers and streams. Is this going to continue unabated? Houses in my constituency are being flooded. The numbers in this regard are increasing each year because the rivers and streams in these localities have not been cleaned for many years. A good deal of very productive farmland is being affected because rivers and streams are not being maintained. I am old enough to remember when these rivers and streams were maintained regularly. When they were cleaned and maintained, there were significant fish populations in them. This nonsense that the maintenance of rivers will destroy the habitats for fish is just that, nonsense. The maintenance of rivers will not impact the fish populations in them. The representatives of an angling club contacted me a few weeks ago. That club cannot have angling competitions on the River Suir because it cannot access the banks due to the briars and other vegetation having got out of control. Historically, this part of the River Suir was very good for fishing. That the lack of maintenance is having such an impact on this angling sport really makes a nonsense of the situation. This must stop. It is having a major impact on rural Ireland. Our rivers must be for what they are for, namely, to get water away as quickly as possible when it falls on farmland and allow that land to be productive.

Rewetting will recreate habitats in bogs, etc. I raised the subject of invasive species with the Minister of State before during a Topical Issue debate. I saw during the week that there is extra funding. Now is the time to tackle these invasive species. These habitats, especially those in damp areas, will have many ground-nesting birds.

3 o’clock

Ground-nesting birds will not survive where mink is prevalent. We also have the problem of cormorants which are coming more and more inland and destroying large numbers of fish and habitats as well. They are completely destroying the foliage on islands in rivers. We have to address the issue of these invasive species. It is no use putting the structures in place that would allow these habitats to develop if the native species that we want to see in them are being killed off by mink etc. At this crossroads with the nature restoration law coming in, we need to put a budget in place that will deal with those invasive species and keep them under control.

The Minister of State mentioned forestry in his speech. I am privileged to be Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and Marine in this Dáil. Our forestry policy is not working. We have thrown a significant amount of money at forestry in the last 12 to 18 months with a new forestry policy but figures do not lie. Our acreage under forestry is actually dropping. Virtually no afforestation is taking place. Farmers are deciding with their feet that it is not economical to plant forestry. We need to go back and re-examine this. We now have designated land with a blanket ban, unenclosed land with a blanket ban and land with a certain level of peat with a blanket ban. Environmental scientists have appeared before our committee to say that those blanket bans are actually hindering the creation of the habitats we are trying to create and that different stages of afforestation in some or all of those areas would actually help the creation of proper habitats for the wildlife and birdlife we are trying to protect and increase. We have significant targets for afforestation. Afforestation is a key part of meeting our emissions targets. We need to go back and review our forestry policy.

The programme for Government has a target of 8,000 ha of afforestation per year. When this Government comes to its close, in six months' or 12 months' time whenever the next election comes, we will not have achieved 8,000 ha in the lifetime of this Government. That is a serious indictment of us and a forestry policy that is just not working. I work closely with Coillte and the private contractors. They have what they see as solutions to the lack of afforestation. I have argued this with the Minister repeatedly. We need to get those stakeholders onside and we need to show farmers how forestry can be profitable.

One of the major issues is that someone planting for afforestation must leave a third of the land idle. People are just not going to make that decision because when it is fit to clear-fell in 30 or 35 years' time, the profitability of that land will be hugely hindered by the amount of land that has to be left for biodiversity. We need to do the balance sheet. Forestry is hugely important to having materials for building in 30 or 35 years' time. In my view the balance sheet is not being done correctly at the moment.

There has been media focus on the CAP payments for land that will be in restoration. It is essential that those payments are guaranteed. However, guaranteeing them for the next five or seven years is not enough; they need to be guaranteed for several generations. The physical changes that will now happen to land under the restoration will not be able to be reversed in any short period of time. So, it is not just enough to guarantee those CAP payments for the next five years or the next seven years. They have to be guaranteed for an extended period of time. People with land that will now be designated for restoration must have environmental schemes in place to allow the income lost to be gained through those various schemes. That will be the acid test for restoration. As well as having the single farm payment for those farmers if we have schemes in place to allow an income to be generated, it will ensure that this restoration will be a success and it will maintain the capital value of those lands that will be in restoration.

I will finish where I started. The litmus test is that land that is designated for restoration must not lose its capital value. We need to use the next two years to ensure that happens.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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Where to start? Speaking as someone who has worked and studied in this area since I was 17, the debate so far this evening has been incredibly difficult to listen to. When we have the Chair of a committee talking about the sole purpose of a river being to drain water away from farmlands, I wonder whether we need to have an ecological education programme within the Houses of the Oireachtas.

We heard from a number of parties this evening. I want to specifically refer to Sinn Féin because that contribution today was also very difficult to listen to. We heard its Members talk about how nature loss and the biodiversity crisis represent the greatest challenge that humanity faces and action is needed, yet Sinn Féin voted against a voluntary programme that is designed to protect nature and restore nature. I cannot fathom how that position was reached. That the recommendations of the Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss were used to defend that action is particularly hard to comprehend.

I wish to be clear: the Social Democrats are very supportive of the nature restoration law. It is absolutely vital to stymieing the destruction we are seeing in nature at the moment and have seen for some decades. It is important that any measures taken are done collaboratively in consultation with communities but they also need to be taken quickly. We do not have time to wait; nature does not have time to wait. My principal concern about this is that there is a two-year period. While I understand why that is necessary, I do not want to see any action on biodiversity that we are currently undertaking or proposing be stalled while that two-year process happens. We cannot afford for that to be the case.

The Minister of State spoke earlier about us having a constructive and honest debate today and I absolutely agree. While we can be critical of other Members in the Chamber, the Minister of State and his Government colleagues are the ones who hold the power when it comes to nature restoration at the moment. I want to bring a reality check into the debate. From my perspective, the major initiatives and successes that the Government has had to date could be summarised as baby steps when it comes to the actual crisis we are facing, and the need for action and the scope of that action. While I welcome those baby steps, they are not big enough or quick enough. They are not at the scale that we need.

While I welcome the investment in the National Parks and Wildlife Service, it came from a very low level. It now gets funding of €67.5 million. That contrasts with the €95 million that the horse and greyhound industry gets. We are so out of kilter with our priorities that I can understand completely how nature is dying around us as we talk.

The €3.15 billion climate and nature fund will start in 2026. There is no ring-fencing for nature in the capital budget. That is needed now and money needs to be allocated for nature.

I very much welcome the 31 biodiversity officers, but we are talking about 31 staff out of a total number of staff of 31,000 in local authorities. Again, it is a drop in the ocean.

A lot was made of the fact the national biodiversity action plan was on a statutory footing. However, the targets are so obscure that they are not legally enforceable. Many of them are 2030 targets while we are indeed in a biodiversity crisis now.

There was no change to the remit of Coillte and Bord na Móna, which I think was the absolute primary missed opportunity when it comes to that biodiversity plan. If the Minister of State had actually brought that in, we would have seen the systems changes we need to see in this country to start addressing nature. If this is the Government's once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do that and turn that tide, unfortunately, it has failed on that. This Government is now four years into a five-year term and those systems changes are not there.

One thing that keeps on being spoken about in the nature restoration law is that the State could meet its targets out to 2030 and 2040 on State land. That will not happen unless the remit of both Coillte and Bord na Móna is changed so that biodiversity is a key priority of theirs and that it is not just a commercial remit they have. The solely commercial focus of these entities is absolutely destroying nature as we speak. This is the Coillte strategy engagement report where it has the carbon decision tree. Essentially, this looks at the company's peatlands and says what it will replant and will not replant, and the choices are made purely on a yield basis. It does not look at an area and say it should not be replanting on peatland, which is a known. The Minister of State agreed with me that there should be no replanting on peatland. Unfortunately, it did not get into the national biodiversity action plan. Here, Coillte is saying it is not a feature for it. It does not review or look at the biodiversity potential of a site. When it sees a piece of peatland, it looks to see how much wood and profit it can squeeze out of it. Until that is changed, we will not see the changes in biodiversity we need to see and the Government will not meet its targets under the nature restoration law.

I will give the House an example because we have many plans, proposals, press releases and nice publicity photos but the reality on the ground is not reflecting those plans, proposals, promises and targets. I will use one example, the hen harrier which is an iconic species. It is, on paper, the most protected species in Ireland and is one of the most studied species, and yet what we see is that from 2015, when there was a breeding population of 108 to 157, to 2022, where we are now down to 85 to 106 pairs of a breeding population. It is a 59% decline, almost one third, since 2000. This species will be extinct in 25 years unless we make the changes required. That means making tough decisions when it comes to where Coillte is planting and how peatlands are being managed. Currently, there is more breeding happening outside special protection areas for this species than there is within these because of the level of afforestation in those SPAs. That does not make any sense at all.

When we get this right, we get it right for farmers as well. I listened to Jonathan Blackmore on "Morning Ireland" where he talked about his land and how he used to see it as waste land. When it was designated as having hen harrier status, he said it was like the death knell for their family and for their land. When they went through the process and learned how valuable their land actually was, however, and that this poor and unproductive land was actually rich and valuable and was very much worth fighting for, you could hear the pride in his voice when he spoke about that. Farmers and landowners are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to protecting this species, but it is the Government that is failing and is overseeing the extinction of this species. It will be extinct in 25 years and that will be the legacy of the Green Party in Government if it does not get this right and if it does not make those changes to Coillte, to Bord na Móna, to the Arterial Drainage Acts and to all of those different pieces of legislation. If they are not changed to reflect biodiversity, nature and the crisis we are in, and they continue solely on the profit basis, all those other nature restoration laws will mean nothing. We will never meet them and they will just be a target.

Oonagh Duggan of BirdWatch Ireland said the Government is quietly quitting on this iconic bird. To hear her say that was such a strong statement but it is important to get it on the record. I do not think it is something the Minister of State would want as his legacy. I ask that, regardless of everything else the Minister of State gets across the line before this Government's term is over, he puts in the heavy work now and gets the remits of Coillte and Bord na Móna changed. If he wants to leave a legacy for nature, that is how he does it.

Seán Haughey (Dublin Bay North, Fianna Fail)
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I warmly welcome the vote of approval for the nature restoration law in the European Parliament last week. As we know, this law proposes to restore at least 20% of the EU's land and sea areas by 2030 and repair all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. It will involve the restoration of terrestrial, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, including wetlands, grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes.

As regards peatlands, EU states will be obliged to bring forward restoration measures for drained peatlands on at least 30% of such areas by 2030, 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050 and to scale up rewetting. These are ambitious targets and will be very relevant for Ireland. They will have a real impact on land use and agricultural lands.

These significant measures are needed for the survival of nature and wildlife. As the Minister of State said here, nature is in trouble and we must help it to recover. We have a biodiversity emergency. It is not an exaggeration to say our very survival depends on this restoration and recovery. To survive, we require oxygen, clean water and, of course, food. For this we need a stable climate, soil and trees. Peatlands and woodlands play their part in providing these basic requirements. In short, we need a healthy functioning ecosystem to survive.

Also of importance is nature as a recreational resource, which is so important for our general well-being. What we have now is degradation of our native habitats. A total of 85% of our most precious habitats have an unfavourable status. Research indicates that every species category of Irish plant and animal is now under threat. We need to act urgently and decisively.

What do we do? The Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss report published in April of last year made 159 recommendations. The Minister of State here published the fourth national biodiversity action plan in January. This provides a number of actions such as the expansion of national parks, the tackling of invasive species and the combating of wildlife crime, among other things. Most importantly, the plan is backed up by legislation imposing legal requirements on public bodies, and I am referring, of course, to the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2023.

We can very much look forward to the publication of a national nature restoration plan by 2026, following comprehensive consultations with all the relevant stakeholders. All this ties in with the EU's biodiversity strategy. Funding will also be provided through the €3.15 billion climate and nature fund announced in the budget. We should also remember that many communities are already doing their bit, as indeed are farmers, who are utilising the various support schemes in place. There are other Deputies in the House who know a lot more about these support schemes than I do. It is encouraging to see so many nature restoration schemes taking place in urban areas in my constituency, for example, very often supported by the local authority. We see the imaginative planting of derelict areas, wastelands, public open spaces and grass verges with native species, organic varieties and so forth. It clearly demonstrates that our communities in our urban areas want to play their bit as regards nature restoration and that there is a high level of awareness of the environmental crisis we now face.

The reaction of farmers to the nature restoration law has been mixed, as we have heard. I believe, however, that they should be reassured by the knowledge that State lands will be used to the maximum for this purpose, that the proposed measures are voluntary for them and that they will be incentivised through financial supports. The law also has the capacity to deliver extra income for farmers, particularly through eco-tourism. In any event, there must be clear communication and consultation with farmers on all these measures, and I have no doubt that will take place.

Thirteen Irish MEPs voted for this law in the European Parliament last week. Obviously, the two Fianna Fáil MEPs voted for it, but so too did the five Fine Gael MEPs. Sinn Féin's Chris MacManus voted against it, as did the Independent Luke 'Ming' Flanagan. I listened to the explanation by Sinn Féin here this afternoon as to why it voted that way, and it is very convoluted. It seems to me that when you are explaining, you are losing. Sinn Féin has an image problem when it comes to the environment. There is a general view that, as a party, it wants to have it both ways. For example, it opposed carbon taxes. That is just one example that is very much in the public consciousness. We therefore should not get a lecture here this afternoon from Sinn Féin about how we voted last week in the European Parliament. One does, however, have to worry about the future direction of the European People's Party, and there has been some discussion about that already in this debate. It is clear that under its leader, Manfred Weber, it is swinging sharply to the right. This will have implications for a number of issues, including migration and the green deal to tackle climate change. I think the European People's Party is meeting this week and determining its manifesto for the European Parliament elections. By all accounts, and from what I have seen so far, it is becoming a very right-wing grouping in the European Parliament, and that is something to worry about. The views on Israel of the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, who will front the European People's Party, are also a cause for concern. No doubt all this will play out in the forthcoming European Parliament elections, so we will just have to wait and see what happens.

I want to raise the plight of the native Irish honeybee, Apis mellifera mellifera, the black bee, in the context of this debate. It is under threat from cross-breeding with non-native imports, that is, from hybridisation. I am aware of EU law, EU regulations and the requirement for free movement of livestock across the EU, but we need to make a strong case to the EU in this regard. I understand that the Government has commissioned scientific research into this issue, but it seems to me there is no urgency as regards this matter. This issue is urgent, so I ask the Minister of State where we are in respect of this further scientific research at this stage and what the purpose of this research is. Presumably, we will make a case to the EU for a derogation. If that is possible, we need to do that.

I also wish to say a few words about the linked issue of climate change. This is an existential crisis. Last year was the hottest year on record. The world is almost at the critical 1.5°C threshold. I am not sure we had a debate in this House about the outcome of COP28 in December. I do not think we did. The summit was a reasonable success. There was a recognition of the need for deep, rapid and sustained reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and a call to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems. There was also a call to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, in keeping with the science. I also commend former President Mary Robinson on the crucial role she played at this summit. I welcome the recent European Commission recommendation on a target to cut emissions by 90% by 2040. We should endeavour to do that and, of course, to continue implementing the measures put forward in our ongoing climate action plan. I am aware that the fourth progress report on this plan has just been published. This indicates there has been an implementation rate of 65% and that 35% of the proposed actions have yet to be completed, so there is still a lot of work to be done and we need to get on with it for all our sakes.

Going back to the nature restoration law, the planning processes now have to be put in place. I think there is a target of 24 months for that, listening to the debate here, so a lot of work needs to be done as regards this law as well. No doubt it will involve a number of Departments. I wish the Minister of State well in that regard.

In the short time I have left, I also wish to raise the marine protected areas Bill 2023. I am getting very concerned that this Bill has not been published. Even when it is published, it has to be enacted before the next general election, and the timescale for that is becoming increasingly tight. Whatever the Minister of State can do to get that Bill published would be very welcome. We have some fantastic resources in my constituency. We have the North Bull Island nature reserve and St. Anne's Park. They are not only widely used by the public but also protected under the various laws. You can see the benefit of those parks and wildlife areas for recreational use and for the general well-being of our urban population. I give a shout-out to Dublin City Council for the work it is doing in protecting these recreational resources and ensuring they can be there for the benefit of future generations.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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We in People Before Profit welcome the passing of the nature restoration law. If we had an MEP, which we hope to have at least one of after the forthcoming European election, we would have attempted to strengthen it but would have then voted for it. I will set out the reasons we would have done so. First, it is very simple. It has been laid out by a bunch of people so at least the basic facts are not, apparently, in dispute in this debate but the consequences of those facts clearly are. We are in the middle of an intense biodiversity emergency - a sixth mass extinction event. Across Europe, 81% of habitats that were supposed to be protected by the habitats directive 30 years ago are not in good condition now. Europe is a disaster for biodiversity and Ireland is at the very bottom of the pile. We are the 13th worst country in the world for biodiversity, a far cry from the greenwashed image the Department of agriculture - using public money - attempts to portray, as it tries to create the impression that big fields full of grass are somehow what nature is meant to be in this country.

Native forests once covered 80% of our land but have been reduced to a measly 1.5%. Almost none of our protected nature sites have effective conservation or management plans. There is massive biodiversity loss and damage even in the crown jewels of Irish nature like Killarney and Connemara national parks. We like to give out, correctly - the whole world should give out - about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, the lungs of the earth. However, it has been done to our equivalent, although not by all of us to the same extent, by draining, burning and extracting from our bogs. In light of all of that, the key nature restoration law proposal to restore 20% of land and sea areas by 2030 seems extremely modest. It is the absolute minimum we should be doing to avoid further biodiversity meltdown. We regret that the final version passed was watered down a lot from the original version. As you see again and again in European proposals, there are massive lobbying operations. I think there are thousands of lobbyists for every MEP. Significant pressure was put on politicians by profit-hungry lobbyists for intensive agriculture, unsustainable fishing and the plantation forest industry. They engaged in an unprecedented campaign of scaremongering around this law. They succeeded in having the proposal watered down.

Unfortunately, Sinn Féin bowed to that pressure. It voted with Fine Gael's colleagues in the European People's Party - hand in glove with the climate and biodiversity-denying far right - to try to block even this watered-down version of the nature restoration law. It went along with the lobbyists who invented all kinds of dire consequences for food production and security, all of which were complete nonsense. The truth, as a coalition of 3,000 actual scientists came together to say, is the exact opposite. It is a pity Sinn Féin chose to follow the lobbyists rather than the science and the public on this issue. Some 97% of respondents to a public consultation on this law supported legally binding EU restoration targets across all ecosystems. We know nature restoration is popular as well as ecologically essential. Sinn Féin needs to follow the science and listen to the people, not the lobbyists, on this issue. If it did, it would realise that protecting biodiversity and restoring nature will not undermine food production or security. Nature and biodiversity are the whole basis of food security. It is true that no farmers means no food. It is also true that no nature means no food. Without nature and functioning ecosystems, eventually there will be no food production. With the collapse of biodiversity, you lose out in the number of insects of so on, the consequence of which will be a crisis in food production in this country and worldwide. That is the trajectory we are on towards absolute catastrophe. We need to take a long-term view of this instead of what Sinn Féin and most of the leadership of farmers' organisations in this country and across Europe have chosen to take by swallowing and regurgitating the lies of industry lobbyists and choosing to cut off their nose to spite their face. Rather than seeing this law as a positive opportunity to reward farmers for farming in an environmentally friendly way, they sought to block it and water it down.

For years - this is the truth, although farmers are not to be blamed for it - we paid farmers to degrade nature by overgrazing sheep in ecologically sensitive areas, by overstocking the best agricultural land and by overexpanding the national herd. That was done by farmers responding to incentives created by the State. That is the truth. Governments have responsibility for that. That does not mean we should continue in that direction. We are in the midst of a climate and biodiversity emergency that is not just causing the sixth mass extinction event but is also threatening our survival and that of the human race. Ultimately, hundreds of millions or billions of people are faced with death worldwide unless we act now to stop it. We need to change the nature of the incentives. We need to incentivise farmers not to bring us further over these catastrophic cliffs by rewarding them richly for restoring nature and reducing carbon emissions. This has to happen on a massive, unprecedented scale. It is not about piecemeal environmental schemes tagged onto a model of industrialised agriculture that is deeply damaging to biodiversity and the climate. Instead, we need a rational, democratically planned, sustainable food system in which restoring nature and protecting biodiversity would become one of the main sources of farmers' income and, in many cases, the main source. We need farmers to save the future of our planet and we need to make a political decision to pay them handsomely to do that. That, for me, is the major flaw of this law. It does not justify voting against it but the work now needs to be done on it. It does not specify how small farmers in particular will be paid to carry out the vital work of nature restoration. We need to listen to farmers on this issue and work with them to come up with the best ways of achieving this. Crucially, we need to ensure it is small farmers, rather than big dairy farmers and the agrifood industry, who reap the benefits of nature restoration. There needs to be a massive redistribution of wealth and resources in agriculture, just like in the rest of the economy.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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I have to confess I have not had enough time to fully prepare for this debate. There are a number of comments I would like to make because I have been listening to the debate for the past hour. I do not think anybody argues against biodiversity. Nature restoration has a kind of broad feelgood factor but I wonder how much understanding some of the people talking have of the complexity of land, agriculture and history. To what point in time are we seeking to restore nature? Do we want to restore it to what it was like 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago? We have been interfering with the landscape in this country, as seen in the Céide Fields, for thousands of years. I recall, years ago, when I was in the Department - I was a Minister - I had a great brainwave about restoring a fairly famous castle. I mentioned this to one of the Department officials. He looked me in the eye and asked, "Minister, to what period do you want to restore it?". I said, "What do you mean? I want to restore it to its heyday". He said it was a heyday of 300 years, during which time they kept building, adding and changing. He asked me to tell him what period I was talking about. It was a valid question. When we talk about nature restoration, it is highly complex and takes a huge amount of knowledge.

In many cases, those most knowledgeable about the capacity of their land are traditional farmers who have been farming land for generations in the one area.

One of the interesting projects going on at the moment is trying to entice the corncrake to come back. I do not know much about the corncrake, but I am learning fast. I mention the case of a particular island that was highly inhabited, Inis Toirbirt. There would be a similar situation on nearby Inis Toirc, but I have been on Inis Toirbirt more often than Inis Toirc. I know one of the people who grew up there and she now has a holiday home there. She explained to me there were 100 breeding pairs on the island when she was a child, but the island was full of houses at that time. The reason for this was that they had a mowing pattern that suited the corncrake. Without that mowing pattern, the corncrake will not survive. When the people left the island, the corncrake stopped breeding and disappeared. Now on Inishbofin, Inis Toirbirt and all these islands, there are programmes that have human intervention to achieve their objectives.

I hear a lot of people talk about wilding saying let us rewild the hills, rewild this and rewild that. There are parts of Connemara that if we wild them, we will get rhododendron. The same people who want us to rewild are telling us they do not want rhododendron. In other places, rewilding would lead to furze, bracken and heather growing to a very woody state. This would give you the most fantastic tinderbox if you wanted a hill to go on fire, accidentally or otherwise. I am trying to put across that this is highly complex. Many people would say that there were a lot more songbirds 50 or 100 years ago and I agree with that. Thankfully, where I live I hear the birds singing every day when I get up at this time of the year. One of the reasons for the decline in songbird numbers is that we used to have small numbers of people tilling an acre or two acres in potatoes, oats and so on. That is gone. Now we have monoculture because we pay people for monoculture. Schemes like ACRES pay for monoculture. I could never understand why REPS did not provide funding to people who tilled a half-acre or acre of land for vegetables, or whatever, because that is very good for nature. We need to be careful about the term we use and the meaning of it. As far as I can see, as somebody who went from the city and had to learn fairly fast on my feet in a rural area, this is highly complex.

If I may say so, the people who know most about how it was, and what the ecological balance was, are not those who have done academic courses. A lot of that knowledge is more deeply ingrained in the rural community. I agree with Deputy Paul Murphy, and am very conscious, that the introduction of headage payments was a rush of blood to the head to try to increase income. We had headage payments for sheep and the disadvantaged areas payment as part of the way it used to be. Yes, that encouraged numbers and overstocking but, if the record is checked, I was the Minister who started the destocking. I was the one who went to the hill sheep farmers as somebody who had worked with hill sheep farmers and been manager of a hill sheep farmers' co-operative. I told them we were going to destock, but I paid them well to destock because they had to put bread on the table like any working family in this country. That is often overlooked.

A letter was sent by the Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries. I do not trust Europe. I do not trust that Europe trusts itself, because I do not think it can tell us. At the end of it, the Commissioner came to the issue of whether farmers will be forced to do anything. He obviously said they will not be and so on, but then he came to the issue of agricultural payments:

Regarding your concern on the payments under the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), in the Nature Restoration Law, the term ‘condition’ is only used in relation to habitat types listed in Annexes I and II [which are very extensive in the west of Ireland, in areas which were never wilfully destroyed with intensive farming]. There is no direct link between the classification of an area of a habitat type listed in Annex I as being “in good or not good condition” under the Nature Restoration Law and the respect of the good agricultural and environmental conditions (GAECs) and statutory management requirements (SMRs) under the CAP. It is quite possible that all obligations under each GAEC standard and SMRs are respected in a given area and, at the same time, such area hosts an Annex I habitat type that is in not good condition.

Now we come to the crucial sentence:

CAP payments depend on definitions and conditions as set in Regulation (EU) No. 2115/2021 and in the CAP strategic plans. NRL neither interferes with those conditions nor amends CAP applicable regulations.

What could amend the CAP applicable regulations - this is why I do not trust them - is the fact that the present CAP finishes in 2027. Is anybody telling me there will not be a call for alignment with the nature restoration law in relation to payments after 2027? Are we to believe that the people who are so elegant in their version of what nature restoration will involve here will not be back saying that if farmers do not comply with a new GAEC, they are not going to get paid? Many of these things, therefore, lead to income uncertainty. I think every Deputy would accept that if huge income uncertainty was structurally built into any other job by the State and by Europe on a seven-year cycle, there would be outrage. Then people wonder why farmers give out.

I have had not had many dealings in recent times with the very intensive farmers in the south east and the south. I know very few such farmers and I do not have the knowledge of their practices. I have more knowledge of other types of farming. There are lots of pressures in the lives of farmers. I know that like everybody else, one of the biggest pressures they face is to have an adequate income to live in the area they live in. I hear a lot of talk about adequate income, but sometimes the schemes introduced to solve one problem create another and create another distortion. Another phenomenon that has been significantly associated with compensating farmers is that certain schemes are highly complex for the most innocent of farmers, who have very low stocking levels. It is not worth their while setting up huge computer records and so on. Consequently, they are the ones suffering the income loss.

As I said, I fully accept nature restoration. I see a lot more wilding, or farmland not being farmed, than I did. One of the interesting phenomena is that if anybody comes to our area, it is very hard to see the lake because bushes have grown up all along the road. We need a debate about whether all of that is 100% a good thing. We see a lot of places where, long before mechanical devices became common on farms in the area, little drains were cleared and the hedges were cut. These were very good hedges. They were very thick because people did not use a machine, but cut them and folded them into themselves and so on. Many people hanker for those days, but instead of hankering and saying we should recreate those days, they are creating something totally different that is going to have a totally different effect.

In certain ways they are not dealing with the biodiversity challenges that mixed farming created. It created a much more diverse ecology. Now we have virtually eliminated any mixed farming - any type of sowing, tilling or growing of vegetables, potatoes or anything - from huge swathes of the west of Ireland. This debate needs to be less emotive. There needs to be less giving out by those who say we are not doing it the way they are telling us, even though they have never farmed in their lives. A lot of that goes on. People who have never farmed or worked on farms are telling people who know and understand the land how to solve the problem, rather than consulting them. If I have one plea from today, it would be to protect people's incomes. People have to live. If we get rid of all rural habitation, close all the schools and destroy all the communities, we are destroying something that is equally diverse and valuable. On the other hand, we can work with the people who know because they have been farming for generations in the same place.

Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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There are times when I disagree with Deputy Ó Cuív and more times when I agree with him, but I always listen to him because it is always worth listening to what he has to say. He has always thought it over very deeply. Ar dtús báire, is mian liom a lua, sa tseachtain ina bhfuil muid, an leabhar An Ghaeilge agus an Éiceolaíocht: Irish and Ecology le Michael Cronin. Tá sé dátheangach. It is in two languages. Má tá suim ag duine sa bhithéagsúlacht nó san éiceolaíocht agus sa Ghaeilge, is fiú é a léamh. It is a really worthwhile read. It is not a heavy read but it is interesting and thought provoking.

We have frogs in the garden. A neighbour up the road has a small pond. I make sure to keep a couple of corners that are friendly enough to the frogs. To see a seven-year-old trying to catch a frog in your back garden - I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, has done likewise - is quite something. It brings home that sense of joy - about which the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, spoke - that the connection with nature brings. Last summer we got one of those rare days in the Guillamene, close to where I live in Tramore, when there was not a heavy swell. The ocean was still and the visibility in the water from standing on the pier, at Newtown Cove rather than the Guillamene, meant you could see about 30 ft down into the water. The sun was shining just right. The sprats came in and you could see them glistening down through the whole column of water. My three boys spent a full hour dive-bombing into 30 ft of wonder. These things are increasingly rare.

I cannot talk about nature without turning to one of my favourite poets. I do not know whether it is allowed to quote an English poet in here. It is usually Seamus Heaney who is quoted, but in this case I will quote Ted Hughes. One of his best-known poems is "Hawk Roosting". It is written from the point of view of the hawk. It closes with the following lines:

The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.

My eye has permitted no change.

I am going to keep things like this.

However, it is not within the compass of the hawk roosting to keep things the way they are or the way they were. We feel this loss all around us. We feel much the poorer for this loss. Anybody who has done as many circuits of the sun as I have, or the Minister of State has, can see it within our own lifetime. We can see how those voices all across our natural world are being stilled and are falling into silence. It is critical that we pass this nature restoration law.

I am going to talk about some aspects that have been largely ignored in this debate. Article 9 deals with agricultural ecosystems and a part of that article deals with rewetting, which has dominated the debate. We have had very little discussion of the other articles that are equally important and probably equally as challenging. However, I want to return to something a previous speaker said when she spoke about the Minister of State's legacy. She characterised it in a particular way, as a legacy of failure. I want to repudiate that utterly. If we are speaking about the legacy that Deputy Noonan has delivered as a Minister of State, we can look to the reform and funding of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS. We can look to the first national park in some 25 years. We can talk about the designation of close to 10% of our marine waters as marine protected areas. He can correct me on that figure if I am wrong. Critically, we will be able to point to this legislation as an important part of his legacy. There is no doubt in my mind when I look at the previous votes - this last vote was not quite as close - that the battle was won in many senses. I accept some of Deputy Murphy's criticisms around the concessions that were made to get this law across the line. However, one of the earlier votes passed by dint of choices made by the Irish MEPs. That was the margin. Had the Irish MEPs gone in a different direction, this law would have failed and we would not be speaking about the nature restoration law. Each of those MEPs had Grace O'Sullivan and Ciarán Cuffe, our Green Party MEPs, in one ear and the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, in the other ear. That was critical. Without that intervention, we would not be here discussing this legislation. That is the Minister of State's positive legacy. I can think of no other Minister for nature who made the positive contribution that he has made. It is something to be entirely proud of. It is very easy to whinge from the ditches. I recall the words of Ron Finley, the guerrilla gardener of south Los Angeles. He says if you want to meet him, grab a shovel. I would say the same thing about nature restoration. It is easy to sit and criticise. If you want to be part of the solution, roll up your sleeves and pitch in.

I will return to some of the other articles. Deputy Ó Cuív's intervention had great insight. He is correct when he says we cannot talk about returning to some better, imagined past. The river does not flow in that direction. We can try to work towards a brighter imagined future that all of us work towards. Deputy Ó Cuív is right in terms of the balance we need to strike between rewilding and restoring. In fact, the restoration of nature in this country is going to require significant human intervention, and not just in terms of the different types of habitat we try to create. We know there are certain man-made and man-managed habitats that actually have great nature value. He also correctly identifies invasive species like rhododendron that cannot be allowed to dominate. There will have to be human intervention in preventing overgrazing and preventing the spread of invasive species. He is absolutely right when he says that the people best placed to engage in that restoration process are the people who know the land best, the people who have worked that land for many years.

I want to mention other articles that get little attention in this debate, such as Article 4 on the restoration of terrestrial, coastal and freshwater ecosystems. We have seen such loss in terms of our pristine waters over recent decades. We know the reasons for this. We can obfuscate and point to human settlements if we wish. However, we know it is because we have pushed our agricultural systems to the limits. The pressure that is placing on our freshwater systems is becoming untenable.

Article 5 deals with the restoration of marine ecosystems, which is going to be critically important in Ireland. Our land mass comprises just one tenth of our territory. Most of what we call Ireland is actually under the waves. We will have a huge part to play in terms of regulating overfishing. What type of fishing will we allow and in what areas?

4 o’clock

Which parts of our marine territory will we choose to protect? Energy from renewable sources is outlined in Article 6. There will be tension between food production, energy production and things like nature restoration. We will need to be honest about that and figure out how to balance it.

Article 8 deals with urban ecosystems. This will be a significant challenge. If I can walk to and from where I stay here in Dublin, I will see some street trees, but what other part of nature will I encounter in the centre of Dublin? Where does a person who lives in an urban environment go to find a frog in a back garden? They are few and far between. That will be as challenging as any other part of this law.

The current system is not working for people, particularly those who are on marginal lands. I spent time with the guys from the Comeragh uplands EIP. They spent their time in that project getting to know their landscape better and getting to know the names of the plants and animals that live in the landscape. It really enriched their understanding of the place in which they had lived all their lives and for generations. The model of sheep farming available to those guys who are farming on commonage does not pay the bills, however. It is incredibly hard work. It does not make economic sense for them or ecological sense for anybody. The damage the model is doing is putting the fragile landscape at risk.

One of the real challenges we will face is explaining the implications of this law and making sure we get buy-in. Brian O'Donnell, director of Campaign for Nature, a non-governmental organisation, spoke in the wake of COP15 in Montreal - the biodiversity COP attended by the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan. Mr. O'Donnell stated that if we are to have any hope for the success of 30x30 - as the Minister of State is aware, that is the 30% restoration target agreed in Montreal - it must be supported by, embraced by and led by local people. The community part in this is critical, as is the land use review. We need to be able to explain to people and help them imagine what this new landscape looks like - a landscape in which we make room for rivers, nature and renewable energy production, which will demand a certain amount of land use, as well as food production, carbon sequestration, water systems and human amenity. We have to help people see that landscape in order that they can understand it. I am firmly of the view that if we can imagine that landscape, we will see that it is a brighter imagined future towards which we all wish to work.

I cannot allow my contribution to the debate pass without referring to the screening I hosted of "Birdsong" in the audiovisual room this week. Seán Ronayne, who many people will know from his appearance on "The Tommy Tiernan Show", has set as his mission the task of recording every bird species in Ireland. He is nearly there; he only has two left. The film is beautiful. Anybody who has a chance to see it should do so. It is beautifully shot. Huge credit is due to Ross Bartley, the cinematographer, and Kathleen Harris, the director. Ultimately, however, it becomes an elegy for a world we are losing. One of the most moving things in the film was the recording of the last breeding pair of ring ouzel in Ireland. It is the sound of extinction. It is the sound of s world that is passing. We are possibly the last generation to have the opportunity to arrest this decline. People should go to see this film, get out into the back garden with the frogs, go swimming with the sprats, reconnect and let us make the difference we absolutely need in order to preserve the natural world for future generations.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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There has been much commentary regarding Sinn Féin and the nature restoration law. I welcome the comments of all those who remarked on how we voted, but then continued with their speeches attacking the nature restoration law. In fairness, Deputies Kerrane, Carthy and O'Rourke outlined clearly why Chris MacManus voted the way he did and the decisions made by Sinn Féin in that regard. No one should have a difficulty with parliamentarians at European or domestic levels or any other level trying to improve a particular law.

The law in question is now in place and in action and we have a period of time to make it work here and now, and that is the bit that matters. As stated by many others, no one is against the idea of nature restoration, or so I would like to think. I agree with Deputy Ó Cathasaigh that it was definitely worth listening to what Deputy Ó Cuív had to say. There must be some reality to our discussion on nature restoration and biodiversity. We all know the issues that exist. The Minister of State and I have interacted on this many times. A reality check is needed, and I will throw one in. I am from Dundalk. Where I live is redeemed land. I assume nobody is considering rewetting it because to do so would create issues. All joking aside, we all know the significant plans for catchment flood risk assessment and management and flood protection. We need to make sure that other laws are not unintentionally impacting on the ability to deliver in that regard.

We have the nature restoration law and we all know what we want to see. In many cases this will involve farmers or public land. It will be possible to do this in a voluntary way and we should ensure there are no obstacles to it happening. As has been said by many others for a considerable time, however, there is sometimes a narrative that pits farmers against an environmental lobby. It is utterly unfair and does not work for anybody. I was at an IFA meeting recently. I have referred to this many times before, and I apologise for repeating myself, but it is hardly the first time a sentiment or idea was repeated in this illustrious Chamber. A former president of the IFA was present at the meeting. There was an element of giving out about form filling, the hoops farmers sometimes have to jump through and their feeling that they sometimes have to provide the same information to multiple agencies. In fairness, the straight answer given was that if you are running a business, going into a bank or having any conversation, the first thing on the agenda is sustainability and that is where we have to get to. There is an acceptance among the farming community of the moves that need to be made.

Sometimes, you get fed up saying the same things. It is a case of working alongside people to deliver what needs to be delivered. Why would we not do so? We know of the various crises throughout the world at present. We know that what we really need to ensure is that we have an ability and a facility to deliver food. We know we are among the best at delivering that in an environmental way. We need to work alongside farmers to make any changes that need to be made. Many people have made that point previously. In fairness, farmers followed incentives. That is what they have done for some time. Many farmers to whom I have spoken got into dairy farming on the basis that somebody from Teagasc or the Department rang them and said they were looking for a young farmer who might be interested in doing this. If we are looking at changing the way we do things, we need to have those sorts of conversations on a sustainable way for farming and farmers into the future. We know many farmers do not believe they have that sustainability at present. We have a period of time in which to act and we need a plan; it is as simple as that. I know that is easily said, but we need something that is doable and can be put into play.

Unfortunately, I may have overshot my time. Given that we are discussing biodiversity, I had intended to bring up the dangers at what is now a nuclear waste facility at Sellafield.

Through the committee on the environment, I have been in contact with the Department of Foreign Affairs. I have got answers from the EPA and the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. I am not sure those answers are up to scratch. We need to look at this. We are talking about one of the most hazardous spots in Europe as regards nuclear waste.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I have not gone soft or anything but, as we are ahead of time, I allowed Deputy Ó Murchú a little leeway.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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In the heart of Ireland, a storm is brewing. Rural communities, the backbone of this country, feel abandoned and betrayed. The culprit is a green agenda driven by NGOs and the Green Party with the full endorsement of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. This agenda prioritises environmental conservation over the livelihoods of farmers and the viability of rural Ireland. They can work hand in hand. Farmers are great custodians of the land and have been for decades. There is now a push from the Green Party, telling them how to behave. We heard about the corncrakes from Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív. I remember cutting hay when the rotary mowers came out. We would start in the middle to ensure the corncrakes would not be penned in and could escape.

On 27 February, a pivotal vote on the nature restoration law took place in the European Parliament. Of Ireland's 13 MEPs, only two opposed it. The vote was tight enough with 329 MEPs in favour and 275 against. The two Irish MEPs who stood against the law were Luke 'Ming' Flanagan and Chris MacManus, both members of the Left group in the European Parliament. However, Mr. MacManus later tweeted that his vote against the new law had been an error, casting doubt on Sinn Féin's stance on this issue. I am surprised to learn where Sinn Féin stands on any issue lately. The law received support from the five Fine Gael MEPs and all of the Fianna Fáil MEPs. I will not name them all because everyone knows who they are, but I will name Mr. Seán Kelly in Munster and Mr. Billy Kelleher. A while ago, Mr. Kelleher was lamenting the fact that 75% of all legislation is now passed in the European Parliament but now he has gone and passed this draconian law. These MEPs now have the audacity to go around holding meetings and knocking on farmers' doors looking for support after having abandoned them. Let us be clear, all of the MEPs who voted for this new law and their respective political parties have completely and totally turned their backs on rural Ireland, all at the behest of the Green Party in order to cling onto power.

Farmers are being demonised and used as a sacrificial lamb. I am proud to come from a very mixed farm. We grew everything. We had sheep, cattle and even a horse. I worked with the horse. Now, when a horse is working, you have to put a bag on his you know what to stop him from even breaking wind. This carry-on is ridiculous.

What I see as worse is the EPA. I challenged the Minister of State before and he did not come back to me with the figures. The EPA recently gave a clear bill of health to Tipperary County Council, releasing a lovely green map showing that no wastewater was emanating from local authority plants and entering the rivers untreated. I cannot use the word "lie" but that was totally erroneous, false and disgusting. An agency of the State is demonising farmers and telling... I cannot use the word I should use but everyone knows what it is. There are 30 in my county. Ten officials from Irish Water and the county council recently arrived at the plant in my own village. There is a big tank that empties straight into the River Suir. The EPA took its sample at a bridge 300 m north of where the pollution is belching into the river. There are many such towns and villages.

The way farmers are being demonised is totally unfair. It is destroying their confidence. By 2030, 20% of their land and sea is going to be taken out. It will be up to 80% by 2050. The Government is tying farmers' hands behind their backs. It is spancelling them and blindfolding them. The next thing is that it will stop them from having a sense of smell. What will we have? We will have no food and no food security. We will not be able to send food abroad to Europe and all over the world as we do now. The victimisation and demonisation of farmers and farm families by the Government, his party and the NGOs is nothing short of scandalous. An official wing of the State is telling porkies and giving false and fake reports and it is getting away with it. It is a shocking indictment of the corrupt state of this country that it can do that every week only for it to go unchallenged and unnoticed.

The soldiers of destiny in An Taisce do not want anyone to do anything. It stopped the cheese plant in Kilkenny for three or four years and would not allow it to go ahead. It brought it to all the courts in the land. In a reply to me one day, the Taoiseach said it was wrong to be doing this. It is objecting to this, that and the other but it has no objection to the big industrial plants or data centres that are going up. I stand here as the proud son of a farming family. I have some land myself that I inherited from my ancestral home. I support the farmers but the Government is abandoning them. I ask the Minister of State to please not drive them to the ground altogether and to allow them to live and grow food.

Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent)
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I have here some captions from my Auntie Eileen's day-to-day diary from 1936. One of the captions said that P. had gone to the creamery - P. was my father - that Ned Barry had called with the paper, that she and Kathy were reading the paper and that Ned Barry had gone out to help in the yard. I am very involved in vintage circles. Recently, I was taking stuff out of a loft. There was a horse-drawn machine and other machinery that people used in farming many years ago, including machinery for the drainage of lands. They broke their backs without machinery to drain land, following the advice of Government as to how to stock their land.

I was at the housing committee a minute ago, dealing with the Planning and Development Bill, and heard Deputy Whitmore on the television saying that she found it very hard to listen to the Opposition because she had been studying this area since she was 18 years of age. She said she found it very hard to listen to Independents or to Sinn Féin. She should try digging a drain across a field to try to get the water off of it. That is very hard. Studying something all of your life and living something all of your life are two different things. I find it very hard to listen to people like that when they have no experience of what it means in real life.

Year after year and decade after decade, we have listened to Governments telling us how to farm and stock the land according to regulations. In 2011, Deputy Simon Coveney told people in this country to invest in milk, white gold, and to build their stocks because that is what the market wants. In 2023, the Government was saying it wanted to reduce the herd. This is what is happening. Every time there is a change of government, there is a change of policy. Every time the Green Party get into government, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael run with it and penalise the farmers who they told to go in one direction and who they will tell tomorrow to go in another. What about the future of food security in Ireland?

Under the slurry Act, farmers are not allowed to spread slurry at certain times of the year. Biodigesters were then brought to the attention of the Government. Deputy Eamon Ryan will not listen to talk about biodigesters. Why? All of the slurry that comes off the farms, all the chicken litter that comes off land and all the grass that comes off land that does not have any animals on it can be used to produce power, but the Minister will not listen. It would mean that we would not have to cull any animals in this country. Again, the science is there. The Government will not listen to science but goes ahead with different things that punish farmers who are trying to put food on the Minister of State's table. Advice from different governments has told them to go one way only to tell them to go the other way the day after. There is no future in farming in this country while we have governments that change regulations at every turn.

In the vote that was taken, 329 voted for and 275 voted against. Every MEP we sent out of there, bar two, voted for this. Two voted against but those two, the Sinn Féin representative, Chris MacManus, and 'Ming' Flanagan, have been voting for it all along. Come the last vote, they changed their votes because they thought it would not be popular to vote for it. They are not the people we want out there representing Ireland.

We want real people involved. When the European Union elections come around, in light of the Fianna Fáil and the Fine Gael candidates that are running, every farmer should look up and see that they have been sold out by their own. There will be independent candidates running in the EU elections who would represent people a great deal better than the parties that put them in this hole in the first place. Now they are being led by the Green Party and every decision they make has been led by that. However, the Green Party does not listen to science. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael are as guilty as the Green Party. Remember that Independent Ireland will have candidates running in the European elections. I ask farmers to make sure they do not vote for the same people who have destroyed their future.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I come from a farming background. The people doing the greatest disservice to Irish agriculture are those like the previous speaker who pretend that holding out against the change we need to make in agriculture and in all dimensions of our lives will make it easier, that the hold-outs will win the day by resisting, to the very last ditch, the ending of untenable practices and that this will provide a future for Irish agriculture or for rural Ireland. That is a totally blind alley. Every sector, regardless of what the sector is, will need to have sustainability at the heart of its long-term strategy for prosperity. The future for prosperous Irish farms lies in having sustainable methods of production. This means changing some of the ways in which we farm. Those who pretend they can resist that and who stick their heads in the sand are leading those they purport to represent up a blind alley. That really needs to be emphasised.

As much as anyone who comes from rural Ireland, I am aware that we need to be sustainable. We need to respect nature because it provides the goods we all enjoy. We need to recognise that current practices globally are extracting three times what nature can restore every year. We are running into deficit because of the way we treat some of our assets. We need to correct that, but correcting it does not mean abandoning food production or the reputation we have. It means enhancing the reputation Ireland has for good food because we can verify that it comes from sustainable practices. We can also verify that we are not polluting our rivers and that we are restoring them to a pristine condition. Farmers know better than any of us what it is to manage land in a sustainable way. They have husbanded our land for years. They know how to do this, but we must ensure that they are incentivised and supported to do it.

Many people looking at the future of family farming do not see in sufficiently vivid colours what a prosperous family farm will look like in ten or 20 years' time. There is a strong onus on the Government to help portray that. Not enough has been done to show how this can be done. We need to go beyond the Common Agricultural Policy and develop new approaches. Imaginative and all as the Common Agricultural Policy has been, it is not sufficient to drive that. This is why I welcome a national nature restoration plan whereby the Minister of State and his colleagues will spell out in detail the pathway that can bring us to these established targets.

I sat on the committee that heard from the citizens' assembly. Some 60% of those who were on the assembly came from rural Ireland. Many of them were farmers. In most cases, they came with unanimous recommendations about the direction in which we need to travel.

I welcome the passage of the nature restoration Bill at EU level. Important clarifications have emerged over the course of the debate. I heard Seán Kelly MEP emphasise recently that this is to be voluntary and incentivised, that it has graduated targets and that it incorporates the new emergency brake. This law will help farmers to adapt to a long-term sustainable future for their sector.

As I have said to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and his colleagues, we are letting slip the need to have a sector-wide approach in food, construction and all of the other key sectors. Making a sustainable supply chain in food is not all just about farmers and their production methods. It also has to be about the role of processors, supermarkets, and of the many who waste food throughout the commercial and non-commercial sector. It needs to be about how we change practices right along that supply chain in order that it can become sustainable.

The corollary of that is processors will pay more for produce farmed in a sustainable way compared with produce that is not. We have not yet created a bigger tent in the context of having a circular economy strategy that could see us move to make sure our food supply chain is of the very highest quality, take steps right along that the chain - not just at the farming end - to ensure that the way we manage this crucially important sector for rural Ireland is to the very highest standard and ensure that Origin Green can genuinely stand up as a concept.

I was disappointed to see that Sinn Féin now seems to be playing footsie with the approach some have portrayed whereby we can have our cake and eat it. At the biodiversity committee, Sinn Féin was all for having a constitutional right to nature. However, its members have come in here and stated that they do not want a restoration law, or at least not yet. It is a case of "Make me virtuous Lord, but not yet".

The truth is that if we do not have a framework and a plan developed by the Minister of State and his colleagues, we will not deliver for Irish agriculture the approach that is needed to ensure sustainable production. I put it to the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, that his national biodiversity plan is a significant step forward. I welcome legal base underpinning the plan. I welcome that the Minister of State will now have a progress tracker and new indicators, and there will be better reporting. The targets are still vague, however. It is not entirely clear what the targets are from one year to the next. They are much more about engagement with various processes and the direction of travel rather than reaching specific targets. Equally, I am not yet convinced that we have the tools necessary to allow us to make the changes.

I can understand those colleagues representing farming constituencies who want to see some greater detail of the tools that will be available to drive some of the targets. One of the big strengths of agriculture in the debate on climate is that it is in the unique position of being able to not just reduce carbon emissions but also sequester carbon through good practices. It can be a very significant earner in the future for agriculture but we need to develop those processes that allows the position now to be benchmarked and for people to earn rewards for delivering that change. This presents statistical problems that we need to put our minds to and get people to work on.

On the reporting to this House, we still have not met the central ask of the citizens' assembly on biodiversity. We still do not have the central driver of how this is to be done and how it will be overseen within the Oireachtas. We need to think more about that process. One Minister of State acting on his own trying to push other Ministers to do it is not sufficient. This is why I see the merit in bringing many of our efforts, be they in respect of the circular economy or biodiversity, under the umbrella of the approach that is taken to the climate plan. They are interlocking challenges we face. Having strategies overseen from the Office of the Taoiseach gives much more momentum and focus and makes people much more responsible.

The other element that needs to be looked at carefully is enforcement. It is all very well to have good laws, but the citizens' assembly was quite critical of our capacity to enforce our existing laws.

I congratulate the Minister of State on the work he is doing. We will watch with interest his development of the national nature restoration plan, which will follow from the passage of the legislation in Europe. It will be a very important opportunity to start to shape the pathway for people and to prove to Deputies such as Deputy O'Donoghue, who spoke before me, that a credible pathway to prosperous farming is what the Minister of State is offering so that we can have nature conservation, sustainable food production and prosperous farming working hand in hand. This phoney war of pitching one against the other and pretending the Government and many of the other parties in the Opposition are selling farmers down the river is leading us in the wrong direction. We will not resolve the challenges that face Irish agriculture if it becomes this type of a Punch and Judy debate. Those who will lose out most from this direction will be the farming and rural communities themselves.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I welcome the opportunity to speak on this. A few things need to be addressed. Earlier I heard reference to scaremongering. I hope it was not directed towards me because I was at the forefront of highlighting difficulties with the nature restoration law. I have dealt with the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Department for many years and I would not like anybody to think this, because we got legal advice on it. This needs to be stated.

I heard reference to the citizens' assembly. The facts are that six people from a farming background were on it. I asked questions on this and I was not told how many of them were active farmers. On top of this, some people say we are doing a disservice to farmers. Some people speaking here as farmers might be ranchers with a few hundred acres in the eastern part of the country. I am speaking about small farmers in the west of whom 70% have gone organic. They do not have the quality of land. They have land with peaty soil. Anyone who knows the directive knows it does not affect top-quality mineral soil and good quality land. It affects land with peaty soil.

Unfortunately I am old enough to remember the habitats directive. I remember our now President Michael D. Higgins telling everyone they had nothing to worry about and it would not affect them whatsoever when designations came in for special areas of conservation. There are 12 of them in a 20 km area around me. These are the facts. I know a fair bit about them. I remember being told they would not be a problem and they would have nothing to do with farming. We were told there would be nothing like that and the lads cutting turf should not worry about it. In 2011, I saw helicopters flying over us. I also saw gardaí going up and down the roads looking to see what people were doing. This was a fair change from what we were told in 1997.

With the best will in the world Ministers, and I am not having a go at any Minister, believe what they see in front of them. The problem is what happens down the road. We saw this with the habitats directive. It was not what was brought in; it was the ECJ judgments that came in afterwards that tightened us into a straitjacket. To go by the so-called law, if farmers in a designated area must plough the land, put fertiliser on it or put cattle out on it they are supposed to get consent.

The problem with the nature restoration law, and this is coming from legal people and not me saying it, is that by default under Articles 4.1 and 4.2 all peat soils will be claimed as not in good status. On top of this is the worry about what will happen down the line. I know, and I have said it publicly so let no one say I am scaremongering, that the State has enough ground to cover it until 2030 with Bord na Móna and Coillte. If we look at the wording of the nature restoration law, it states that any works finished and carried out already cannot be included. It has to involve either ongoing works or new works. These are the facts.

When we add up the 19,000 ha that Bord na Móna is able to do, it will cover some of it until 2030. I have said this openly. Coillte also has land that will cover us. The issue is from then on. Tell me a place in this country where the State owns agricultural drained peatland. This is land where bog was cut away years ago and it was shored, and there is green grass growing on it and farmers are farming it. The reason this was done, and the EU gave them grants to do it, was to make more viable small farmers with 30 acres, 40 acres or 50 acres in the west, north west, down as far as west Cork and parts of Kerry and the midlands so they could earn a living and rear a family. This is what they have done for years.

People in here speak about ACRES. ACRES has nothing to do with the nature restoration law, whoever believes it has, although it is an environmental scheme. There are 46,000 farmers in it and we welcome what the Minister did this morning to bring in another 9,000 farmers. This means there are now 55,000 in the scheme. We must remember there were 70,000 farmers in the old REPS. Now we are shouting about having 54,000 or 55,000 farmers in a scheme.

There is no point in codding ourselves. It is in the hands of the NPWS to draw up a plan. This plan must go to Europe within two years. All I can say to the Minister of State is that I hope he deals with the stakeholders. There is a worrying part to this. The wording on the designated areas speaks about them being prioritised to get the double bubble of stocking. Have a look at Lough Funshinagh. In 1997 under the habitats directive, was it ever envisaged that in Lough Funshinagh people's houses would be flooded before the habitats directive came in? It is a major problem.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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In the time I have I will try to be as focused as possible. I welcome the Minister of State's speech today. I welcome that he has confirmed the Government is confident, just as Deputy Fitzmaurice has said, that at a minimum the rewetting targets for 2030 and 2040 can be met entirely on State lands. I welcome the clarification that flooding is not in question. It has nothing to do with flooding. I welcome the clarification that there are no designations under the nature restoration law. I welcome the fact that it was confirmed for the record that all of this is voluntary. I thank the Minister of State for this.

I thank those in my office for their work and I thank the Oireachtas Library and Research Service for the digest, as usual. I will not be party to anything that seeks to reduce the ability of local farmers, particularly small farmers, to live in an area and farm sustainably. If I have a chance I will come to some of the very good projects being done at present.

I pay tribute to Mick Wallace who comes from a small farm and who has gone out on a limb in Europe on this.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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He has.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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He has done so with the assistance of Clare Daly. It is important to put this on the record.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Yes.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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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.

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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I thank Deputy Connolly.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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I will finish by referring to bánú, the depopulation of the Gaeltacht areas and the rural areas. While it is a fantastic to have "Danú", at the moment we have bánú, so we need to look at the two. I am fully behind the Minister of State on this matter and I would like to work with him.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí go léir. First, I will try to sum up the points made in the ten minutes I have. I thank all Deputies for their contributions. It is somewhat disappointing that the main Opposition spokespeople for agriculture and the environment have all left the Chamber. We often get criticised in this Chamber for not having Ministers present for Dáil debates and it is disappointing they did not choose to stay for the remainder of the debate.

I want to respond to the comments made by Deputy O'Rourke, and by the Sinn Féin Deputies generally. I am still at a loss to understand why they took the position they did in the European Parliament in January. Deputy O'Rourke raised issues around the concrete funding measures but said they are without a roadmap. We have the funding for that. The roadmap will be our nature restoration plan. I agree wholeheartedly with what he said about the citizens' assembly, both the main one and the one I established, the Young People's Assembly on Biodiversity Loss, and about the historic underfunding of nature. We are in the process of trying to redress that. I hope that if Sinn Féin is on this side of the House in the next government, it will continue that trajectory because it needs to be continued.

We have ensured that biodiversity officers in local authorities have the necessary skills. Peer-to-peer supports are in train as well. The State is leading the way. I agree with a lot of the points made. I could have given the speech made by Deputy O'Rourke, but the inconsistency is quite staggering.

Specifically on the points raised by Deputy Kerrane about the Sinn Féin MEP, Chris MacManus, we have not had engagement with him. Our door has been open to all MEPs and we have spoken to them all. I could not find anything in the amendment around compensation. I do not know where it is. Deputy Kerrane might come back to me on that.

Seán Kelly MEP is on the record as stating in regard to the multi-annual financial framework that there will be support there. There already is funding through the LIFE programmes and the European Innovation Partnerships, EIPs.

I looked at the Sinn Féin budget for nature restoration. The total is €75 million. We actually announced more than that this week alone, with two EIPs, a LIFE project and the expansion of ACRES. Again, there is inconsistency and that is disappointing.

Deputy Carthy raised issues around targets being accompanied by a plan. Yes, that is exactly what we are doing. Again, the implementation plan could fall on Sinn Féin's watch, if it is in the fortunate position to be in government the next time round. We are setting this up and I do hope that Sinn Féin will follow it through.

I thank Deputy Nash for his contribution and for the support of the Labour Party's sister party on the nature restoration plan in Europe.

I also thank the European People's Party. Deputy Connolly raised the support of the MEPs, Mick Wallace and Clare Daly. I had really good engagement with them. I really want to thank them for their support as well.

Deputy Cahill raised issues around the capital value of land and participation in schemes such as the hen harrier designation. Again, I acknowledge all of this. He is correct. He is not incorrect in terms of the unsustainability of big countries like Brazil and China. He also mentioned the issues around land adjacent to land where there are rewetting projects. Again, I will go back to points made last year by Pat O'Toole in the Irish Farmers' Journal about demonstration farms. I think that is going to be hugely important. Deputy Fitzmaurice and I spoke about that as well. We must look at the opportunities around this in terms of rural tourism and the production of wholesome food close to nature.

I agree with what Deputy Whitmore said about baby steps. What we have done does involve baby steps but that €65 million represents a 135% increase in funding for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It is still not enough and that trajectory will need to continue. I agree with the Deputy on the role of Bord na Móna and Coillte. We want Coillte to go much further, particularly in relation to the hen harrier and to strengthen its commitments in regard to the threat response plan for that scheme. In the national biodiversity action plan, Coillte has committed to managing 30% of its estate for nature by 2025. Again, that commitment is there, but we do want it to go further. I agree with Deputy Whitmore on the remit of Bord na Móna and Coillte. That does need to change in line with what we are expecting of them in terms of restoring nature. I hope that through the public consultation for the hen harrier threat response plan, we will see actions emerging that will turn around the fortunes of this iconic bird.

I thank Deputy Haughey for his comments as well on the fourth national biodiversity action plan, tackling wildlife crime, and invasive alien species. We are certainly making significant progress in terms of wildlife crime. I again welcome the supportive comments he made. I saw how enthralled he was while he watched with great interest the film by Seán Ronayne, "Birdsong", in the audiovisual room. It was lovely to step into the audiovisual room and get away from the madness of this place and watch birds and listen to birdsong. I thank Deputy Ó Cathasaigh for bringing Seán and his team to the audiovisual room.

Deputy Haughey is right that many are already restoring nature. Many communities, Tidy Towns groups and landowners are already restoring nature. I again thank David and Róisín Faye and their children, Michael and Marie. I have the Westmeath mud on my boots to prove that I was there this morning with my colleagues, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and the Minister of State, Senator Hackett. They turned around poor water quality status and made it good by using simple measures with a number of participating landowners. They put in wider buffer zones, solar panels and pumps to give water to their animals. It has turned around the bathing water status of the lake in the Lilliput area. I commend them. We are doing this for their children. I would love to see them having the same future on the land that their parents have.

Deputy Paul Murphy made some valid points about special areas of conservation, SACs. In fact, all of our SACs have site-specific conservation objectives. There are activities requiring consent in relation to those. There are hundreds of measures in more than 600 sites throughout the country.

I want to focus a little bit on the points made by Deputy Ó Cuív about nature restoration versus rewilding. I am not entirely sure what rewilding is but restoration is an active engagement that involves active participation. We need landowners and farmers. We need grazing animals. Sometimes I see rewilding as a bit of an abandonment of land.

There is too much of that happening due to issues of succession and the challenges associated with farmers not having young people coming forward. I agree with that point about the reference and what we are talking about. We need active farmers and farming. The corncrake projects around north-west Donegal and Mayo are starting to yield success. I thank all of the Corncrake LIFE team who are working with landowners. I have been up with them and will be going up again in a few weeks' time to see some of the work that is going on. It is wonderful to start hearing the sound of the corncrake, the Crex crex,on the landscape again.

I thank Deputy Ó Cathasaigh for the always poetic comments he brings to the table.

Deputy Ó Murchú raised the issue of Sellafield and I will engage with him on that matter outside the Chamber.

Deputy Mattie McGrath's contribution was a typical one. Perhaps if he has land, he would like to get involved in restoring some nature. There will be good money in it so I invite him to get involved in some restoration projects.

I agree wholeheartedly with what Deputy Bruton said about farmers and a sector-wide approach, which is significant. I take on board the points around vague targets in the national biodiversity action plan, NBAP.

I thank Deputies Fitzmaurice and Connolly for their contributions.

It has been a useful debate and I hope Deputes found it useful. We will continue to engage. I am conscious this debate will go into the record of the Dáil. Perhaps in the future it will be examined by researchers or academics. They will do so either in the context of our collective failure to restore nature, our failure to save species from extinction and our failure to save our corncrakes, hen harriers, curlews and lapwings, or they may be researching the transcript in the light of examining the turning point for nature in Ireland and Europe, when our skies again are full of birds, our hedgerows are buzzing with pollinators and farmland birds, our seas are teeming, our towns and cities are climate resilient, and our collective well-being is made all the better for the sights, sounds and smells of a nature positive future. I again thank all Deputies for their contributions. We look forward to continuing to engage for the lifetime of this Government and, please God, whoever is in this seat in the future will continue to do the work we have been doing.