Pat Casey (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his reply. In all fairness, it is a bit repetitive. I could refer the Minister of State to the joint approach to deer management of 2010, the County Wicklow deer management project 2018 and a number of pilot schemes in between. None of them are addressing the situation. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage is the largest landowner in the Wicklow Mountains because it owns the Wicklow Mountains National Park. The second largest owner is another State body, Coillte. The Department therefore has the ability to manage and cull the deer herd. There is no natural predator for the deer. I am not proposing to rewild the Wicklow hills and introduce wolves, but if we did so, the deer population could be controlled. There is no natural predator to manage deer in Wicklow, so we have to do it.