Malcolm Byrne: Protect bees, coasts and nature with AI

Minister, I very much welcome this debate. I think it's quite apt that this month is the centenary both of the birth of David Attenborough and of the founding of Fianna Fáil and in many ways Minister I think you encapsulate the best of both in your approach to this office. You have been very committed, you've been very committed to this work and your advocacy as well is something that deserves to be commended. I do want to echo in terms of Deputy O'Hearn's remarks with regard to Ladies Island and indeed commend Wexford County Council for the work that's being done there and I think that multi-agency approach is certainly something that does work. Tomorrow as I'm sure you're aware as part of biodiversity week is world bee day and I do think that we need to move very quickly toward protecting the native Irish honeybee and I think legislation in that regard should be expedited but I also think the threat to the bee population should not be underestimated and I'd encourage you Minister that you might come to visit Ireland's Wild Bee Sanctuary which was set up by Paul Hendrick and Clare Louise Donlan on the Wicklow Wexford border where they set aside 20 acres deliberately with the purpose of trying to protect the world bee population and they would argue that if we can convert and incentivize lands to be used as meadows that that will do a lot for biodiversity. It's always been my view that farmers are our frontline workers in the battle against climate change and to deal with the biodiversity crisis and the more that we can equip farmers and ensure that farmland is used effectively for that purpose the better. A year ago in fact this week we had a gorse fire on Tower Hill which obviously caused a lot of problems for people who live there but also damaged much of the ecosystem there and the Tower Hill Community Development Association has been doing enormous work to try to restore you know that the uplands there so that the flora and fauna can thrive again. I do think support to small groups like that makes a huge difference in terms of protecting the very important ecology that's in the area. You'll know that I've raised with you before and I know you've visited the Black Stairs Mountain and you mentioned the importance of the national parks. We would love to see a Black Stairs Mountain National Park on the Wexford-Carlo border. You'll be aware Councillor Barbara Anne Murphy in Monclody has been a champion of this. We've a lot of peatland habitats that are there. Again farmers are very committed. It is a special area of conservation but looking to move that to a national park I think would be something that would be very welcomed in the community and I think a fitting legacy of your time as Minister. I certainly agree that it's important that we work with nature and I think in a lot of the nature-based solutions to deal with you know some of the flooding events that we've experienced it's essential and certainly you know we would have seen in the Wicklow-Wexford constituency where floods were caused by a number of different reasons but due to the heavy rainfall it is critical that we work with nature to try to ensure that those issues are resolved and again it's important that you work with community groups in places like Monclody and Ockram and Shillela in order to be able to address that. I'm fortunate like yourself to represent a coastal constituency you know with many of the finest beaches stretching in in the case of my constituency from British Bay down to Morris Castle but we have huge problems with coastal erosion which obviously has an impact you know on people's homes and where they reside but there is a really serious problem obviously of the impact that that has on habitats as well and in our discussion around biodiversity I don't think that we should forget about issues with regard to coastal erosion. What I'll finally say is I think the importance of the role and the potential of artificial intelligence in biodiversity shouldn't be underestimated. When you can use all of the ecological data that can be gathered and you can make assessments and you can use it to inform what measurable action should be taken in a community. So the use for instance of drones, the intelligence gathered from that, using big data and AI to be able to inform it and I know that there has been some research being carried out by some of our universities and Research Ireland I know has funded a lot in this but the whole role of AI and sustainable development I think is underestimated and I would encourage you as Minister that your department would explore it further. you