Gabhaim buíochas leis an Leas-Cheann Comhairle. I join Deputy Aird in acknowledging the work that is being done by people. He mentioned a number of different projects; bees were one of them. That kind of apiculture is really important. We know how much danger there is associated with the native Irish bee. There is an organisation in my own locality called Open Hive, which not only locates hives in places where they might not otherwise be - on private land, on top of apartment buildings and other places like that to allow bees to thrive - but is also engaged in education with the local community to ensure that people interested in keeping bees will get the opportunity to do that. They are some of the many unknown heroes of biodiversity across Ireland. I think of Monkstown Tidy Districts as well, a local organisation. It does not just do the pick-ups on Saturday mornings that we all associate with Tidy Districts and Tidy Towns organisations. Monkstown Tidy Districts organises many biodiversity events to show people how they can foster biodiversity in their own gardens or on their own balconies if they do not have a garden, and to help them to sow different types of plants that give variety and foster the growth of various fauna in a biodiverse way. I am fortunate to live on the edge of Dublin Bay, which is a UNESCO biosphere. It is a hugely important place and part of that would be places like the Booterstown marsh, administered by An Taisce, which does enormously important work in providing spaces for birds and plants of all different types, both saltwater and freshwater, because it is tidal and the water comes in and out according to the tide. It fosters an environment where all those plants can grow. People who drive down Booterstown might sometimes complain about the smell when the tide is out but the people of the area have a close association with and attachment to the valuable asset the Booterstown marsh is. The archipelago of Dalkey Island is also an area where biodiversity and the restoration of habitats for animals that do not have other places to go have been fostered. I acknowledge the work done by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in the context of the Dalkey Island archipelago. The council, in fairness to it, is constantly working on its biodiversity space, working with local organisations such as the Irish National Sailing School, which has been equipped by the council with things that help it clean up the water in Dún Laoghaire Harbour and the adjacent areas. We have organisations like Flossie and the Beach Cleaners - Flossie Donnelly is a young girl who has pioneered the cleaning up of our coasts and beaches with groups of volunteers - which collect tonnes of rubbish over a period of years, picking up all kinds of things off the coast and beaches. They are organising pick-ups all the time, not just in our area of Dún Laoghaire but all the way up and down Dublin and the east coast. The work they do is hugely important. They do it in the face of the fact that there are other complicating factors. Even in Kilbogget park, for example, where we have a lovely attenuation pond, a family of swans had to be removed because of an oil spill. Even though we have all these local heroes constantly working to put in place facilities to assist with biodiversity, working against them we have litter and pollution. In the context of Dublin Bay biosphere, at the West Pier at the back of Dún Laoghaire Harbour, there is an overflow pipe from the West Pier pumping station. The sewerage collected in the south Dublin area is mostly pumped through the West Pier pumping station, through an under-seabed pipe to Poolbeg, where the sewerage is treated before being released into the sea. However, when there is a lot of rainfall there is a greater demand on the pumping station than it can cope with. When there is too much material going into it, it flows into an overflow tank or attenuation tank at the West Pier, which holds 70,000 litres. Even then, when that is full, for example when there is a lot of run-off from rain, there is nowhere for the waste to go but into the sea. All the work that is being done by the various groups I have mentioned is being counteracted by the regular pollution of Dublin Bay in incidents like that. There is an easy solution insofar as we could build a second attenuation tank that would prevent those overflows. It is an easy solution in the medium term and something we should be looking at if we are serious about biodiversity.

Sentiment score: 0.29