Emer Currie (Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for bring here personally today.

Four minutes does not seem long enough to summarise the four years it has taken for a local sports club, St, Oliver Plunkett Eoghan Ruadh "Plunkett's" GAA, to get to the point where a proposal for the redevelopment of Martin Savage Park, just off the Navan Road, was ready for a Part 8 planning process.

We have an issue when it comes to our parks in Dublin city. With an increase in development and the concentration of that development, our parks have to work harder and be used better for the growing and diverse populations they now serve. Unutilised parks and green spaces, whether that be for active or passive use in terms of biodiversity, is not an option anymore.

In the Navan Road area of Dublin West which Martin Savage Park would be in the heart of, we have 15,000 people, including more than 3,600 children who attend the local primary and secondary schools. Pelletstown, one of our newer areas of Dublin, or, as we know it, Ashtown, Rathborne and Royal Canal Park, is still being built and will have more than 3,500 homes and we do not have enough access to local sports club facilities.

Plunkett's GAA, a club with more than 1,350 members - with 600 families living in the area and 45% female membership where the average age is 25 years - has over 70 teams across all age groups, 400 volunteers and 150 children attending its nursery every week. They run an inclusive all-stars group for children with additional needs and have many other break-out groups, such as sheds, Gaelic mums, cycling and golf.

This club is currently over-delivering for a community under-served by community amenities. They need access to functional and basic club facilities to do that and they do not have them.

Currently, the clubhouse is situated beside Dublin city-owned Martin Savage Park where they have access to basic green pitches but these pitches are frequently waterlogged and unplayable for six months of the year. This year they have not be able to utilise them for 70% of the time. They cannot play on dark evenings because they do not have floodlights. They travel all around north Dublin to rent all-weather facilities or any facilities at short notice when matches, training sessions and - for instance, recently at Easter - kid-camps are cancelled.

Now it looks like their modest plans to rectify this with the addition of an all-weather pitch in Martin Savage Park are in disarray because of the presence of Brent geese or because Dublin City Council did not sufficiently prepare for the appropriate assessment in the Part 8 application in relation to the protection of Brent geese.

It is not like the presence of Brent geese or the statutory protections around them is new news. The site of the all-weather pitch in Martin Savage Park was chosen so as not to disturb them as one of the 139 playing field and other inland sites in the Dublin area that they use. We have knowledge from large-scale housing developments at St. Paul's College in Raheny, the old Cadbury sites which had been refused for development and where geese have been a consideration, and we have knowledge from an all-weather pitch application at St. Aidan's CBS in Dublin 9 which was given the green light. Everybody knew how important ensuring the conservation of the Brent geese was but with a stroke of a pen at the eleventh hour - a letter from the Department that states that this all-weather pitch in combination with the effects of other mooted developments of artificial pitches on playing field sites utilised by the Brent geese in the Dublin area - those proposals are in complete peril leaving a giant question mark over the delivery of essential sporting facilities for hundreds of adults and children in a local community. We are talking about 130 m by 70 m of a facility in an area of growth. Surely we have enough space for both the Brent geese to feed and our children to play.

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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The light-bellied Brent goose, Branta Bernicla Hrota, breeds in the Canadian high Arctic and winters, almost exclusively, on the island of Ireland. Under the European birds directive, the Brent goose is a protected species, and Ireland has designated a total of 23 special protection areas for the Brent goose, with one further SPA for which the species is listed as an additional special conservation interest. The identification and selection of sites for designation as SPAs was based on monitoring data over the winters 1995-1996 to 1999-2000, inclusive. It was estimated that 53% of the population that over-wintered on the island of Ireland during this period was supported by the 24 SPAs for which the species is listed.

The identification and designation of SPAs was based primarily on core wetlands that supported bird species and provided for their various ecological requirements. However, as many bird species regularly use areas outside of these core wetlands, not all areas utilised by a species were included within the SPA boundaries.Within County Dublin six special protection areas, SPAs include the Brent goose as a special conservation interest, SCI. These are: North Bull Island SPA; Malahide Estuary SPA; Rogerstown Estuary SPA, which I visited recently; Baldoyle Bay SPA; South Dublin Bay SPA; River Tolka Estuary SPA; and Skerries Islands SPA.

The Brent goose is a grazing species and while over-wintering in Ireland the species feeds largely on eelgrass, green algae, and salt marsh vegetation in the intertidal zone. In Dublin and other urban areas the species shifts to graze on grasslands from midwinter as other foraging resources become depleted. This is why we see so many of them flying around our parks over the winter period.

During the period 2013 to 2017 the population of Brent goose over-wintering in Ireland was estimated to be 30,295 individuals. Analyses from the Irish wetland bird survey suggests that the population of Brent geese in Ireland increased by 93% between the winters of 1994, 1995 and 2018 to 2019, albeit with a noted 11% decline from the winter 2013 to 2014 and 2018 to 2019. The Irish wetland bird survey is co-ordinated by BirdWatch Ireland and under contract to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, with surveys undertaken by staff from both the National Parks and Wildlife Service and BirdWatch Ireland as well as hundreds of volunteers each winter.

Brent geese are well known to forage on improved and amenity grasslands such as parks and sports pitches with utilisation of these sites having increased since the 1970s. A study from 2012 to 2013 and 2016 to 2017 identified Brent geese using a total of 113 terrestrial inland feeding sites in Dublin city and environs. The abundance of suitable grasslands for foraging in the Dublin area is a likely factor in the noted increase in the Dublin Bay Brent goose population in recent years. The utilisation of public parks for all is a matter for relevant local authority in the management of their space for nature and other uses. Activities, plans or projects that affect a protected species or their habitats is grounded by legislation and must be considered by the relevant authority. The Senator mentioned the appropriate assessment for the development of Martin Savage Park. The local authorities are obliged to carry out their functions in compliance with various legislative and administrative requirements with respect to the conservation, protection and preservation of the natural and built heritage. I will come back with supplementary information to the Senator.

Emer Currie (Fine Gael)
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I know I am throwing a lot at the Minister of State this morning on this specific case. It is a huge problem if we cannot deliver essential sporting facilities for local children. An all-weather pitch should be a basic for a local sports club in facilitating so many people and actively encouraging well-being and health. It is a place where friendships and communities are created. They need an all-weather pitch. We are aware of the issues around the Brent goose and being sensitive to them but this is an issue that I feel has not had the necessary response. Where is the joined-up thinking? It should not be the case that a letter arrives in at the eleventh hour from the Minister of State's Department and that this is all in peril. We need to look at the bigger picture here. How do we ensure that we are able to protect the Brent geese but also protect our children's childhood and their ability to play in their local park for their local club?

Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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I absolutely appreciate the challenge this has created. We are in the depths of a biodiversity crisis and it is important. Our urban areas and Dublin have a huge role to play around the species of wetland birds. We know that the Brent goose population has increased by 230% from 1994 and 1995 and from 2018 to 2019. It is quite a significant population increase, which suggests that it is a good thing in terms of the population increase of the birds. As the Senator has said, the appropriate assessment is important in looking at ways of finding additional sites or other foraging sites for the geese when they are over-wintering in Dublin. It would be important. I will talk to officials in the National Parks and Wildlife Service to engage with the biodiversity officers in Dublin City Council to perhaps see if there is a way forward here. Again, these are challenges of increased demand for public space and increased demand for amenity space as the population grows in Dublin city. I believe it is important that all species can live together and particularly in urban centres. There is an opportunity for the development of these playing pitches but also the protection of this really important species.