Oisín O'Neill

speaker
171 appearances 2 recordings 2 series first heard Apr 2026 last heard 6 Jul

Oisín O'Neill’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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Mooney Goes Wild · Invasive Species Week · 6 Jul 2026 podcast
Thank you very much for this question, really, because this is one of the big asks we have for policymakers in Ireland.
And the plant you're speaking about, Cherry Laurel, I've been campaigning specifically on this plant for years, really.
There are several well-known invasive species and they're very, very well-known invasive species and they're still widely available for sale.
So Cherry Laurel, as you pointed out, this is probably the best example of this.
It's been recognised already as highly invasive by the National Parks and Wildlife Services and National Biodiversity Data Centre.
Even four years ago, the Citizen Assembly on Biodiversity Law singled out cherry laurel.
But at the same time, as you rightly pointed out, it's still widely, widely available for sale and you can buy it in Lidl.
You can even buy it on motorway plazas.
So when it comes to cherry laurel, there is currently a risk assessment underway by the National Parks and Wildlife Services.
And this is great news and a long time coming.
So hopefully at the end of that process, cherry laurel will be designated as an invasive species.
And this means it'll be added to a list and banned from sale.
Really, the problem is, and it's quite a bizarre situation, as you've pointed out, while it's recognised as invasive, it's still available for sale.
So there's no interim control measures.
So everyone accepts it's invasive, but it's still being sold and people can plant it in their garden and it escapes into the ecosystem and it does really, really bad damage to our native plants.
So what we'd be advocating for is that this whole process is flipped.
And once a species comes into the country, once it's recognised as being a likely invasive threat, we should really be adopting a precautionary approach.
So we introduce these kind of temporary restrictions while the risk assessment is ongoing.
This, to me, makes complete sense.
So, yeah, you're spot on.
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