I very much welcome this debate. It is quite apt that this month is the centenary of the birth of David Attenborough and the founding of Fianna Fáil. In many ways, the Minister of State encapsulates the best of both in his approach to this office. He has been very committed to this work and his advocacy is something that deserves to be commended. I echo Deputy Ahern's remarks with regard to Our Lady's Island and commend Wexford County Council on the work being done there. That multi-agency approach is certainly something that does work. As part of National Biodiversity Week, tomorrow is World Bee Day. We need to move very quickly towards protecting the native Irish honey bee and legislation in that regard should be expedited. The threat to the bee population should not be underestimated and I would encourage the Minister of State to visit Ireland's wild bee sanctuary, which was set up by Paul Handrick and Clare-Louise Donelan on the Wicklow-Wexford border where they set aside 20 acres deliberately with the purpose of trying to protect the world bee population. They would argue that if we can convert and incentivise lands to be used as meadows, that will do a lot for biodiversity. It has always been my view that farmers are our front-line workers in the battle against climate change and the biodiversity crisis and the more we can equip farmers and ensure that farmland is used effectively for that purpose, the better. This week one year ago, we had a gorse fire on Tara Hill, which obviously caused a lot of problems for people who live there but also damaged much of the ecosystem there. The Tara Hill Community Development Association has been doing enormous work to try to restore the uplands there so that flora and fauna can thrive again. Support for small groups like that makes a huge difference in terms of protecting the very important ecology in the area. I know the Minister of State visited the Blackstairs Mountains. He mentioned the importance of the national parks. We would love to see a Blackstairs Mountains national park on the Wexford-Carlow border. The Minister will be aware that Councillor Barbara-Anne Murphy in Bunclody has been a champion of this. We have a lot of people and habitats there, farmers are very committed and it is a special area of conservation but looking to move it to a national park would be very much welcomed by the community and would be a fitting legacy of the Minister of State's time as Minister of State. I certainly agree that it is important that we work with nature. In the Wicklow-Wexford constituency, floods were caused by a number of different factors, including heavy rainfall. It is critical that we work with nature to try to ensure that those issues are resolved and again, it is important that the Government works with community groups in places like Bunclody, Aughrim and Shillelagh to be able to address that. Like the Minister of State, I am fortunate enough to represent a coastal constituency with many of the finest beaches in the country - in the case of my constituency, beaches stretching from Brittas Bay down to Morris Castle - but we have huge problems with coastal erosion, which obviously has an impact on people's homes and where they reside. There is also a really serious problem concerning the impact of that on habitats and in our discussion around biodiversity, we should not forget about issues relating to coastal erosion. The importance of the role and potential of artificial intelligence in biodiversity should not be underestimated. We can use it to gather all of the ecological data that can be gathered, make assessments and use it to inform what measurable action should be taken in the community, for example, the use of drones, the intelligence gathered from that and using big data and AI to be able to inform it. I know some research is being carried out by some of our universities and I know Research Ireland has funded a lot of this but the role of AI in sustainable development is underestimated and I would encourage the Minister of State and the Department to explore it further.

Sentiment score: 0.32