Wildlife Rehabilitation Support Scheme: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-29 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I am very glad to support the motion. There are a few different words in Irish for the environment but one of the nicest is comhshaol, the idea of coexistence and living together. We share this space. Wildlife in its essence is the idea of life that is not utilitarian. It is not a product. It is not farming. It exists simply as a fellow traveller on our planet and in our country. At the same time, its magic is in its existence that is separate from us. It is also part of healthy biodiversity, which is crucial to all our survival in the big picture. The climate crisis gets a central focus but the biodiversity crisis we are facing is as acute, if not more acute. We are in one of the great eras of extinction with 15,000 species on red lists. We are talking about an extraordinary loss of the many threads that make up the amazing web of biodiversity on our planet. Here in Ireland we have such beautiful biodiversity. We see the reports from birdwatchers who go out to listen to birds and there are fewer of them. The same birds are not there. The many sightings have become the very occasional sighting in terms of wildlife. There are success stories of species that have come back from the brink, like the corncrake and others. I want to credit a separate strand of funding which has been really important in that regard, namely, European LIFE funding, for some of the species that are in critical decline. We know that LIFE funding is itself under threat at the moment. Vital funding for nature and biodiversity could get absorbed into a competitive fund, where it is competing against drones, military funding and all the rest. One of the challenges during our EU Presidency will be to make sure that LIFE funding is maintained as a separate strand of funding. That is one issue, but then there is this issue of wildlife rescue. The other part of the bigger picture is habitat work. I urge the Minister of State to ensure we move to designate more spaces. We talked about releases and where they would happen. We must have more special areas of conservation and back up the nature restoration plans we will have with real resources. We must look to continuously expand our national parks, as I know the Minister of State will. Wicklow was in the news recently for potential there, as were other places. Incredible care and work are done. As Senators said, it is done on a 24-hour basis. We often cannot bring these animals to us. We have to be with them. It requires an extraordinarily generous form of love and care. It is so often on the fringes. We hear a lot about farmers being the stewards of nature. That is very valid, but what we are talking about here is people who are literally the stewards of nature, who are purely devoting themselves to nature, not as a side point of what they are doing but as a core, who are dedicating their time to our fellow species and to life. They should be rewarded. It should be something that people can plan and build. I see that career development and professional development is built into it. I like that the picture that is painted of what we should be having in terms of a properly resourced wildlife rescue network of centres and spaces throughout the country where people can provide the care in a way that is ideal. That is wonderful. I hope the Minister of State will say this is something we are going to make happen, and this fund is going to happen and here is how we are going to report on it. I have a small suggestion. Because this area has been so under-resourced for so long, some of the projects that exist will struggle to reach the high standard that is set out. A one-off grant may be needed to allow wildlife rehabilitation centres to reach the proper standards and provide the separation between domestic animals and wildlife that is so important. We want to move to a situation whereby they build in properly designated isolation areas. We need something that gives these centres a shot at getting this funding and multi-annual security, which is where we have to move to. Perhaps that could be looked at. Anything that moves us away from a situation where the generosity of individuals is, in many cases, all that is supporting hedgehogs, cetaceans or the many other examples that we could give of extraordinary projects throughout the country. This route towards recognition and resources is very welcome. I am happy to support the motion. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:52+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-29