Wildlife Rehabilitation Support Scheme: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-29
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Nessa Cosgrove (LAB), Labour Panel

As a species, humans have been remarkably successful in adapting to our own surroundings and we have given a great deal of thought to adapting our environment to suit our needs. Unfortunately, we have not been as successful or given enough thought to ensuring our adaptations do not impact on other living creatures who share our planet.
Human activity, whether thoughtless or deliberate, has had a catastrophic impact upon many other life forms living wild alongside us. Nature loves diversity, but through our pursuit of efficiency and our determination to mould nature to suit our immediate needs, we have often promoted agricultural practices that specialise in monocrops. The disposal of vast quantities of waste from intensive farming of pigs and chickens, the overstocking of land with sheep and cattle, the overplantation of Sitka spruce, intensive grass growing and repeated sowing of crops all play a part in exhausting our natural world.
Our land use practices often require the destruction of hedgerows in pursuit of bigger fields and the ever-increasing application of fertiliser, weed killer and pesticides.
As a result, we have much poorer levels of biodiversity than we once enjoyed. The health and resilience of remaining species is compromised also. These weakened species operate in a human-centric environment in which they have not evolved face daily dangers from road traffic, overhead cables, lawn-mowers, strimmers, pets such as dogs and cats, oil spills, poisoning and illegal hunting or snaring. It in this challenging world that wildlife rehabilitation services such Wildlife West in Sligo operate. Called to scenes of poisonings, incidents and accidents, services like Wildlife West observe, assess and do whatever they can to mitigate or remove the birds and animals from danger and, where necessary, bring them back the centre for assessment and rehabilitation. Hedgehogs, barn owls, foxes, ducks and swans are among those helped this year by the team at Wildlife West. Long-term investment is also made through outreach programmes and educational visits to schools and colleges by wildlife rehabilitation services. Through the education of children, young people and their families, we all learn how best to protect nature. That means the reliance on organisations like wildlife rehabilitation services will be reduced. By establishing a fund to support licensed wildlife rehabilitation services, we will help to meet our obligations under the fourth national biodiversity action plan. Biodiversity and climate loss are interlinked. I am proud to be standing here with my comrades to support this.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-29