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 · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
This should be much quicker because cherry laurel isn't the only...
invasive plants are still being sold, like Montbrisha and Fuchsia are spreading very, very fast in the west, in the south-west of Ireland.
Red Valyrian as well.
Buddleia, the butterfly plant, is still being marketed as a plant that's very, very good for butterflies in the garden.
But this is a well-known invasive species that hasn't been listed.
So it's important for people to recognise the ones that are being sold to try to avoid them.
Because at the end of the day, the garden centres won't have an incentive to do this.
It's up to the policy makers, really, to put through these changes.
And
I just want to mention as well on the cherry laurel because we spoke about the potential cost to the people who are farming cherry laurel and what this will mean to them.
But there's already a cost for us because there's a huge amount of,
taxpayer money being used to fund cherry laurel removal in special areas of conservation in Ireland including the Glen of the Downs, the Cool Garry land, Hazelwood special area of conservation up in Sligo so there's already a huge amount of public money being spent on tackling the issue of cherry laurel and at the same time it's still for sale in garden centres so this is really the crux of the issue and this is where the policy makers really need to come in and do something urgently.
Yeah, definitely.
It's not easy.
But again, it comes down to priorities.
Like, you know, we had an Article 17 report last year which found that 90% of our protected habitats are not in great condition.
Invasive species were identified by that same report as the second biggest pressure on nature in Ireland.
after agriculture so it really just comes down to priorities as a nation we want to do better for nature we want to improve things for nature and that is why we have the draft nature restoration plan coming in now so while yes it will be some of these decisions aren't easy people people like their flowers people like their fuchsia but ultimately if we want to do the right thing for nature we have to plant native we have to allow areas to rewild and we have to stop planting invasive species that will spread into ecosystems and ultimately harm our nature
We just recently had an announcement that there is a new invasive species bureau.
So everything we've been talking about, about the risk assessments and educating people in schools and all this, these are all things now that, in my opinion, this new invasive species bureau should be tasked with.
Showing 81–100 of 171 · page 5 of 9
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