Neither of the Healy-Rae TDs have ever been likely poster boys for environmental protection. Indeed, Danny Healy-Rae’s Dáil attack on climate change science last year made it all too easy to stereotype the brothers, and other rural TDs, as Trumpian enemies of a healthier planet. But such stereotypes can be unhelpful and, as Michael Healy-Rae demonstrated in the same chamber last month, often plain wrong.
Few TDs ever highlight environmental issues with the passion and urgency that Healy-Rae brought to the crisis in Killarney National Park woodlands, a national treasure now under severe threat due to the spread of rhododendron and other issues. He cut straight to the heart of an environmental truth all too rarely grasped by administrations and public opinion. Managing a national park, he pointed out, is not at all a simple matter of "you close the gates and let it off".
Rhododendron is a very beautiful flowering plant. But it spreads rampantly when introduced outside its geographical range. In Killarney (and elsewhere) it is replacing the great diversity of native species in our oakwoods with a monoculture. The mature Killarney oaks may still look healthy in infested areas. But unless the rhododendron beneath them is cleared, they are the last generation we will see. No regeneration is possible beneath the dense rhododendron canopy.
Healy-Rae’s initial call to bring in the army is not the answer, as he subsequently recognised. But it does capture the urgency of the situation. There are serious questions to be asked about the park’s management by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and by the Minister responsible, Heather Humphreys.
:fill(white):background_color(white)/static.themebuilder.aws.arc.pub/irishtimes/1647534191476.png)
Why was the apparently exemplary rhododendron eradication programme, offered by the volunteer group Groundwork over decades, ended by the NPWS? Is it true, as Groundwork claims, that there has been chronic reinfestation of rhododendron in cleared areas? Will the Minister resource the park adequately, in terms of management skills, personnel and science to address this crisis? It is time for answers, and solutions.