Irish Examiner view: Time to consider a single wildlife agency

Review of NPWS is essential and all groups with a commitment to environmental and conservation wellbeing should contribute to it and thereby add to the momentum it initiates. 

Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan, right, with Trevor Donnelly and Philip Buckley, NPWS, at Killarney National Park in December. File picture: Valerie O’Sullivan

It would not be surprising if there was a sceptical response to the announcement that there is to be a strategic review of the role the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS) plays in protecting the remnants of our biodiversity and our badly neglected national parks.

That scepticism will spring from the unfortunate reality that reports, reviews, and consultation documents are all too often the place where good ideas are sent to die the slowest deaths.