Reintroducing birds of prey cost €1.5m

Close to €1.5m has been spent reintroducing three species of birds of prey, one of which had been extinct here for more than 200 years.

Most of the money has been spent since 2007 and the figure does not take into account the input of National Parks and Wildlife Service personnel.

The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, which took over responsibility for wildlife from the Department of the Environment in 2011, has defended the cost, saying Ireland had the lowest number of breeding bird of prey species of any member state in the EU.