Cabinet Committees
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-09
============================================================

Jennifer Whitmore (SD), Wicklow

In Ireland, 90% of protected habitats are in an unfavourable conservation condition. Ireland ranks one of the lowest in the world when it comes to nature intactness and we also spend, as a percentage of our GDP, one of the lowest amounts among countries in Europe. The Government has an Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund but the independent body that was set up to look at nature restoration has estimated it is going to cost €450 million to €700 million a year to roll out nature restoration plans in Ireland. However, there is no money currently ring-fenced for that under the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund. This is something I raised so many times with the previous Government and with the previous Minister. Funds needed to be ring-fenced for nature protection and restoration under the fund. It was not done by the previous Government. I am asking the Taoiseach to ring-fence money for nature protection.

---

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/dail/2026-06-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-09