Ireland’s ecosystem “isn’t yet capable of coping with wolves” and “they’d all be shot” if they were reintroduced, Green Party Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity Pippa Hackett has said. Her remarks come amid a EU debate over the protection of wolves on the continent.
Green Party leader Eamon Ryan previously floated the idea of reintroducing wolves into Ireland in comments accompanying a 2019 Dáil motion on forestry policy, prompting a backlash from some politicians. Then minister for arts, heritage and the Gaeltacht, Josepha Madigan, suggested that bringing wolves back after 250 years might “undermine existing conservation programmes and would do considerable damage to farming”.
Mr Ryan later said the idea was not going to happen anytime soon.
In an interview with The Irish Times, Offaly-based Senator Pippa Hackett – who has a beef and sheep farm – said she would not be against the idea of reintroducing wolves. However, she thinks it would be decades away, would require engagement with farmers, and may only be suitable in certain parts of the country. She says there are “certainly not” any moves to bring forward the policy in the Green Party.
Part of her brief in the Department of Agriculture is forestry. She says the sector was “in a terrible mess” when she started in the role, and it took her almost three years to clear a backlog for felling licences.
She believes the Government’s new forestry programme, which includes more generous payments for afforestation – particularly for native species of trees – could make a “massive contribution” to the diversification of farmers’ sources of income. She says wild deer who eat tree saplings are the “number one issue” that hampers native woodland and because Ireland does not have apex predators such as wolves people have to cull the deer. There needs to be a “more effective cull programmes to fill that gap”.
Ms Hackett adds that if the country gets its land-use policy right there could be areas where lynx or wolves could be introduced. She also notes that domestic dogs are a large killer of sheep in Ireland but “we’re happy enough to have our dogs”.
As a “super junior” minister Ms Hackett, unusually for a Senator, is a Cabinet member. She has had a rapid political ascent, from being elected to Offaly County Council in 2019 to having a seat at the top table in Government in little more than a year later. She plans to contest the next general election in the new three-seat Offaly constituency having missed out in 2020 in the old five-seat Laois-Offaly constituency when she came sixth.
With just two of the existing TDs in the old constituency coming from Offaly, Ms Hackett says: “There’s a blank seat in Offaly. I believe it has my name on it. It’s going to be a challenge because Sinn Féin are likely to run someone.”
Ms Hackett also says that “being a Green in rural areas can be challenging”, saying she has received some “online abuse”.
“Not everyone wants to change what they’re doing.” However, it is also “immensely satisfying” to be a rural Green “supporting those communities, those farmers, those businesses who want to do things differently”.
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