Press release
Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow – 7th October 2026
BirdWatch Ireland is alarmed by the lack of provision for birds, biodiversity and nature restoration in Budget 2027.
Bleak future for Irish birds as Budget 2027 fails to deliver for biodiversity and nature restoration while the Government leads on gutting legal protection for birds at EU level.
BirdWatch Ireland, Ireland’s largest wildlife conservation NGO, is deeply concerned and disappointed that the Irish Government has yet again failed to make anything even close to proper provision for the restoration of nature in Budget 2027. This demonstrates wilful disregard for the future of our natural heritage, agricultural and tourism sectors, for the prosperity of our society, for efforts to lessen the catastrophic impacts of climate change, for our shared cultural heritage and for the very foundation of our economy, for all of which biodiversity and rich, properly functioning ecosystems are utterly vital.
We acknowledge the €6 million increase for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), increasing the budget of that crucial state agency from €107m to €113m. NPWS is a critically important organisation which has demonstrated the good work it can do with the right funding but for whom the scale of the challenges keep increasing. It is essential that government keeps the momentum going by investing properly in NPWS so they can address severely degraded biodiversity and lead on restoration.
Despite many hopeful promises and nice words, absolutely no money whatsoever has been earmarked for nature restoration in 2027, despite Ireland submitting a Nature Restoration Plan to the European Commission. The Nature Restoration Regulation requires the restoration of 20% of habitats on land and sea by 2030. Recalling how last year money in the Infrastructure, Climate and Nature Fund was emptied to fund Metro North and wastewater treatment and not nature, and with no funding for restoration allocated in 2027, it’s impossible to see how Ireland’s Restoration Plan can even get started a mere three short years from the first mandatory EU restoration deadline [1]. The lack of funding will also be of real concern to farmers who have been led to believe that government will provide additional funding for nature restoration on farmland.
Oonagh Duggan, BirdWatch Ireland’s Head of Policy and Advocacy, said, “Restoration of our critical nature infrastructure has been ignored by government, with no new funding for nature restoration in 2027 and only a paltry increase in funding for the National Parks and Wildlife Service. It sends a very worrying signal that restoration of the habitats of the 63% of wild bird species whose populations – a figure that should be a source of national shame – are currently in decline is further away than ever. It also shows that Government is out of touch and way behind the people judging by the level of public engagement and reliance on nature for their wellbeing”.
BirdWatch Ireland has produced its own Plan for the Restoration of Red and Amber-listed Birds of Conservation Concern, which it has presented to the Irish Government to assist it to meet its obligations to do the right thing for birds and biodiversity in Ireland [2]. We call again to properly fund this plan and in line with the recommendations of its own Independent Advisory Committee on nature restoration [3].
At the same time that government is failing to adequately fund nature, it is leading on the efforts in the Presidency of the Council of the EU to make it easier to deliberately destroy nests and kill birds in proposed changes to EU environmental impact assessment legislation [4]. BirdWatch Ireland vehemently opposes the weakening of EU environmental laws. This is a severely retrograde step and will be devastating for nature.
Oonagh Duggan continued, “The future for the protection of birds in Ireland feels bleak. Instead of funding restoration which would restore habitats for birds and nature helping society be more resilient to climate breakdown, government has said no. Instead of defending the basic environmental laws and investing in implementation, government is weakening those laws. If the legislative changes happen it will have very severe ramifications for the most sensitive bird species in Ireland. Taken together we suggest that government needs to take a hard look at its approach or we will face catastrophic losses of birds into the future.”
Notes:
- Info about the Nature Restoration Regulation https://environment.ec.europa.eu/topics/nature-and-biodiversity/nature-restoration-regulation_en
- CSO figures on the Irish public levels of engagement in nature
- For full details of BirdWatch Ireland’s Plan for the Restoration of Red and Amber-listed Birds of Conservation Concern, please visit our page here
- The recommendations of the Independent Advisory Committee on nature restoration can be found here
- Irish Presidency Press Release on changes to environmental assessment legislation.
