Padraig Hoare: New package for NPWS a victory for nature and Noonan alike
Ministers Darragh O'Brien and Malcolm Noonan at the launch of the Strategic Action Plan for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Those of us of a certain vintage will remember heavy rock's glorious history in the 1980s, and Australian band Midnight Oil's seminal hit 'Beds Are Burning' was one of its finest.
With an unbridled intensity and passion, lead singer Peter Garrett brought the tragic history of Australia's indigenous people to the world stage, with his glistening bald head and bulging eyes giving what magazine called a "mesmerising onstage presence".
Peter Garrett was committed to environmental and social justice when Bono was still playing small halls in his native country, so when he became Australia's environmental minister in 2007 after a lifetime of activism, the excitement and expectation among fellow climate campaigners was palpable.
Despite his reputation, it was no surprise that he could not live up to those lofty expectations. He left the post in 2010, with many who had supported him dismayed at his perceived betrayal of the cause, with many ambitions left unfulfilled. Even the organisation he had once led, the Australian Conservation Foundation, blasted him during his term.
In many ways, Ireland's current heritage minister Malcolm Noonan is on a similar hiding to nothing.
The Carlow-Kilkenny Green Party TD, a former director of Friends of the Environment, was appointed with much hope and expectation among environmental activists.
However, realpolitik, compromise, and the fact that smaller coalition parties always become the whipping boys mean Malcolm Noonan et al have accepted they will make decisions that will turn off some so-called "traditionalists", but also alienate those in their core base that criticise them for not going far enough.
He has not personally escaped the criticism, with biodiversity's apparent lack of importance in the Government's remit used as a rod to beat him with politically.
That is why Mr Noonan will savour the political victory of a reformed National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).
It has been a long time coming, and €55m and 60 new immediate posts, including rangers and scientists, is a big coup.
The agency had been largely seen for years as ineffective and unwieldy, despite a growing biodiversity crisis that has turned into an emergency, and a desperately committed NPWS staff that felt it was fighting the battle one-handed.
When ministers spoke about its commitment to climate change during the unveiling of the last budget, not once was biodiversity mentioned.
A review of the NPWS carried out by world-class academics in Trinity — Professor Jane Stout and former Environmental Protection Agency director Micheál Ó Cinnéide — was scathing in its findings, but seemingly lay gathering dust for months on end after being completed almost a year ago.
To be fair to Mr Noonan, his department did announce a €47m package on Budget day to allow the NPWS to beef up its funding to pre-financial crash levels. However, it largely got lost in the overall messaging of the day.
This new €55m package is a standalone victory for Mr Noonan, and to an extent, Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien, with heritage falling into his departmental brief.
Like Mr Noonan, Mr O'Brien has the unenviable task of tackling the housing crisis and, like his predecessors, has barely made a dent in it as the sheer scale of the problems runs far deeper than one single overarching solution.
Speaking in the deliberately chosen magnificent surroundings of Ballykeefe open amphitheatre in his Kilkenny constituency, Mr Noonan spoke of how the announcement brought a "day of hope for nature", and how "the tide was turning in the loss of biodiversity in Ireland".
The NPWS will now be "fit for purpose", he vowed, while also promising the long-anticipated Wildlife Crime Unit would be a robust entity, despite a tepid start.
He may as well enjoy the moment, because there aren't many in political careers for most.
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