I welcome the opportunity to mark National Biodiversity Week. I want to first set the baseline. Where we are at present when it comes to nature and biodiversity in Ireland is not a good place. A total of 90% of Ireland's EU-protected habitats are in unfavourable conditions, and 51% are deteriorating. Ireland has one of the lowest levels of protected land in the EU, with only 6% being designated as SPAs and 10% as SACs. Some 14.7% of Irish species are threatened with extinction, and 2.7% are already regionally extinct. One third of bee species are threatened and two thirds of our bird species are of conservation concern, with curlews being down by 98% since the 1980s and corncrakes down by 96% since the 1970s. Just 53% of our water bodies are in satisfactory condition, and 56% of our native plant species are in decline. We are in a bad place, but I recognise that some measures being put in place at present are seeing positive results. The Minister of State spoke about the corncrake and curlew projects that are in place. There are certainly good signs and positive movement coming from that. I acknowledge the Minister of State's passion in this area, in which he has worked for a long time. Certainly, a huge part of his life is spent enjoying and appreciating nature. Considering where we are and the difficulties we face, I think there is considerable work ahead. When the Minister of State spoke earlier, he referred to the national parks and the NPWS. I recognise the incredible work done by the NPWS. The people in there are very passionate about the environment, and that is why they are in that job. It struck me as I listened to the Minister of State's speech, in which he outlined and listed all the national parks we have in Ireland - indeed, we have seen some very welcome increases in the national parks - that I am not sure we have really defined or identified what role our national parks should play. That is a key problem. When people hear about a "national park", they think of nature, protection and a safe place for nature to grow and be enhanced, but I do not believe we have got to that place with our national parks yet. That our national parks do not have management plans is a major concern of mine, and I have been raising it for several years now. Our national parks need to be areas where biodiversity and nature protection are the top priority, but unfortunately, that is not the case. Many of our national parks are farms with no additional protections within them. They are just lines drawn on a map, given a title and a place on a very lovely website. I am not sure whether, from a nature perspective, they are actually helping things. We should be having a discussion not only about what role the national parks play, but also about the balance within the national parks and their role. Many of them have become and are designed as recreational areas for communities and people to enjoy, and that is very important. We need these educational facilities and places where people can go and connect with nature to understand and enjoy it, but they also need to be places where protection is involved. We need to have a discussion about whether we need highly protected areas within our national parks that do not have walking tracks, car parks or coffee shops, and are not purely for recreation. That discussion absolutely has to happen. I do not believe we have even begun to consider that. Many of the things the Minister of State has talked about when it comes to funding are looking at footbridge upgrades, trail upgrades and maintenance, and redevelopment of carparks. As I have said, these are important, but at present we are not getting the protection piece right. We are getting the recreation piece right, but the protection piece has not been considered sufficiently. I ask that this be brought to the Minister of State, because he has had to leave the Chamber. Much of this stuff is long-term and very complex. You have different landowners, competing agendas and competing needs. It is difficult, but there are some quick wins that the Minister of State could make in relation to protecting biodiversity that are within his remit. I know the Minister of State is a birder, and he is essentially responsible for them, so I am surprised that we still have red- and amber-listed birds that are hunted every year. The Minister of State signs the open hunting season order on those, but I ask that he consider not allowing any endangered birds to be hunted, because that is counterintuitive. The Minister of State also allows for the capture and coursing of protected species. Again, that should not be allowed. I heard him talk this morning about an invasive species bureau, which is a very good idea, but there are some very simple things that need to happen immediately. We cannot allow the sale of invasive species in this country, on the one hand, and then at the same time have these invasive species causing huge destruction in certain areas with the State spending millions trying to get rid of them. It does not make sense. Rhododendron ponticum should not be sold in this country, and anyone selling it should face sanction. Cherry laurel is another species that is causing incredible problems and difficulties and yet you can still buy it. It should not be for sale. I know there are a number of species that are actually illegal for sale in Ireland but which are still being sold. For any distributor or garden centre that is caught or found to be selling these, there needs to be sanctions. We have to protect what we have here. Identifying that a species is problematic and seeing the absolute havoc a species like that can cause down in Killarney National Park and still allowing for it to be sold does not make any sense to me at all. I have a couple of minutes left. I know Derek Mooney has been in the media a lot for not-so-positive reasons but I wish to acknowledge and mention his documentary, which I have been looking at this week, about urban nature. This is an area we tend to forget as well. I think we see nature as something that is separate from us, out in the country and is only a rural thing but nature is all around us. His programme was very interesting in looking at how we can incorporate and facilitate nature to be a part of our cities and towns. Over the past number of years, we have cemented it out and got rid of it. We have created homes and communities where nature is not welcome or it cannot find a place. The Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, on one hand, is doing fantastic work with retrofitting homes but, at the same time, that retrofitting seals a home so species like swifts can no longer find their little nooks and crannies. I brought that to the SEAI's attention previously and it said it would look into that. We have become very good at the engineering aspects of our lives to the detriment of nature and there are ways we can make our homes, schools, villages and towns a lot more nature-friendly - I refer to bee bricks and swift bricks - to ensure that when there are new developments, it is native hedgerows that go in there and not species that just do not belong there. There is so much we can do because I think we have become very isolated from nature, particularly in urban communities. If we see ants, our first instinct is to get rid of them. We go straight for the pesticides we can get down in the local supermarket. All that kind of stuff has to stop. We need to learn to live with these species. I go out into my garden and I see midges everywhere and I love it, because I know all those midges in my garden are feeding the bats and the birds. We need to have that understanding of the food web and the ecological cycle but we need to make our villages and towns open to nature. I ask the Minister of State to pass that on to the Minister.

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