Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge the families of the 48 victims of the Stardust tragedy, their friends and the wider community, who for 43 years have waited for justice and who today have received a State apology from the Taoiseach. Neither last week's verdict of unlawful killing nor the Taoiseach's apology today can ever make up for the loss of their loved ones. I hope, however, that the recognition of the truth of what occurred 43 years ago and the apology for the further hurt and pain they endured at the hands of the State will be a source of some comfort. I also acknowledge those family and friends who have not lived to see today's apology.

I was really struck by the words of retired dairy farmer and well-known inventor Tony Bergin, from Cooleeshill, south County Offaly, as he accepted the 2023 Unsung Hero of Offaly award at a reception in Tullamore recently. Tony, at nearly 94 years of age, puts the majority of his enjoyment in life down to his love of nature. In his very powerful acceptance speech, Tony spoke with a mix of nostalgia, passion and sorrow as he described memories of hunting and fishing and walking through the fields and meadows with bees and butterflies flying around him. He recalls listening to the corncrake and hearing the lonesome call of the curlew, sounds he has not heard in many years. What particularly struck me, and has remained with me since, were Tony's words to the effect that as farming progressed, farmers ploughed up the fields of flowers and sowed a new type of grass such that they had lovely green fields but without a flower in them. Those flowers, he said, were the source of food for all wildlife. Farmers were advised to cut down the hedges so people could see the countryside, and in doing so, Tony said, they cut down everything in sight: plum trees, crab trees, cherry trees and the hawthorn. Nature planted those fruit trees, he said, and man destroyed them.Unfortunately, Tony's account, while sad, is a reality we must own up to. By "we", I mean policymakers. For decades, we have been encouraging, training and incentivising farmers to chase higher yields without much regard for the impact of these policies on nature. Now that we have changed that ask and are incentivising measures like multispecies swards and hedge-planting, there is a narrative among some farmers that we, the policymakers, are placing the blame for the biodiversity crisis on them, with no reckoning for our own role in its demise. That is not the case, nor would it be fair or useful. We policymakers need to acknowledge the mistakes we have made and to commit to supporting farmers to go back to doing what is in their DNA and hearts, because farmers want to farm and I know they can restore nature while they do that.

Tony, like so many farmers before and after him, loves nature. While he is officially our unsung hero in Offaly, I am sure he will not mind me saying that there are farmers like him all over the country who are unsung heroes for nature and who long for the return of wildlife to their farms. I thank Tony Bergin for his reflective insight.