INHFA President Vincent Roddy
It was with a high level of concern that I read a recent opinion article by Minister of State Christopher O’Sullivan (25th May 2025), where he outlined the State’s ambition to expand the number of national parks and protect biodiversity.
After reading the article, I noticed many concerning aspects, and I will address those. However, I first want to address the most frightening element of the article, that being the failure to recognise the role farmers have in any final plan.
Throughout the article, we saw numerous references to the critical role of the National Parks and Wildlife Services (NPWS) and the need for ongoing community engagement, but nowhere in the article were farmers referenced.
While the author of the article may not have been the Minister, the reality is that at the very least, he would have sanctioned it. Either way, the drafting of an article about biodiversity across land that is predominantly owned by farmers, without making one reference to them, isn’t just a miss-step, it’s a clear indication that their input isn’t relevant and that they don’t matter.
Of course, for farmers with designated lands that have dealt with the NPWS, the sense that they don’t matter won’t come as a surprise. However, up to the publication of this article, there was the pretence that the Minister and the NPWS have always wanted to include farmers, but maybe what has been revealed in this article, while disturbing, is much closer to the truth.
Moving to other points raised and specifically, the suggestion by Minister O Sullivan that the State is actively looking to expand the number of national parks through the purchase of additional lands. This is something that the Minister’s party leader and Taoiseach, Micheal Martin, has previously proposed and is a major concern.
In purchasing additional lands, we are going to see the State actively competing against farmers and especially young farmers. Indeed, this proposal is, it seems, at variance with the Fianna Fail party constitution, where under Article 1(v) it details the need “to maintain as many farms as practicable on the land.”
Before this policy becomes ingrained, there has to be a wider conversation around land use, taking into account food security and the wider socio-economic needs, in addition to the concerns around land access, especially for young farmers.
Staying with our national parks and the damage caused by recent wildfires at Nephin National Park and Killarney National Park. It is, of course, very concerning that so much damage was inflicted on these habitats, and I also agree that we need to be proactive in implementing measures to protect these areas.
The Minister, in his article, pointed to climate change and human actions as key elements in wildfires, and maybe they are, but what hasn’t been properly assessed is the level of damage inflicted on the national parks relative to other upland areas.
Overall, our national parks are a tiny percentage of our upland areas, but have seen a higher frequency and more damaging wildfires. In assessing this, you don’t need to be a genius to understand where the problem is. And as any farmer will tell you, land that is not being managed and left to go wild is a significantly higher fire hazard than managed land grazed by cattle or sheep.
Another aspect relating to these fires concerns the financial impact. Minister O Sullivan detailed the enormous work undertaken by NPWS staff and the need for additional resources. Again, this may be justified, but before we go into this space, we should contrast how wildfires in a national park are viewed and dealt with as opposed to wildfires on farmed uplands.
Following the wildfire in Nephin National Park last Spring, there was an understandable sense of shock at the damage done and concern around wildlife and the loss of biodiversity. This was seen across all elements of the media, and in some instances, there was a level of anger that these fires may have been a deliberate action. However, at no stage did anyone question the NPWS staff or ever imply that their wages should be reduced as a result of these wildfires, because this would be blatantly unfair.
Contrast this with what happens if farmland is burned. Immediately, the farmer is deemed the prime suspect, despite the fact that any farmer I know would be too afraid to light a fire. All CAP payments on these lands are withheld because the Department of Agriculture take the view that all burnt land is ineligible for CAP payments. Whether the farmer is guilty or not is not the issue.
Thankfully, relative to our national parks, the amount of farmland burnt is quite low, but it does happen, and when it does, the consequences for the farmers are unbearably high and definitely not just. This may also help to explain why hill farmers are not too impressed by the well-worn narrative that the NPWS are under-resourced.
At the commencement of this article, I highlighted my concern regarding the exclusion of farmers as the State looks to address concerns around biodiversity loss. The Minister, in his article, detailed how 85% of Ireland’s most precious habitats have an unfavourable status. Most farmers will maintain that the reason for this centres on the fact that the State, through the NPWS, drove a strategy of preservation over conservation.
Through this strategy, which has also been taken to task by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), farmers were restricted from carrying out the necessary actions to protect and enhance these sites. So, before we plan a way forward, we need to assess where we are now and critically assess how we got here. In this assessment, the first thing that needs to be clarified is the legal status of these (SAC) sites.
Following this, we may be in a position to move forward, and if this is the case, then farmers will be willing to play their part, that is, providing the State is willing to engage with them.