Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 December 2025
560. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reasons the Kish and Bray Banks have not been included in the NPWS northwest Irish Sea special protection areas despite being designated as important bird areas by an organisation (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [71617/25]
View answerUnder the EU Directive 2009/147/EC, the ‘Birds Directive’, member states are required to classify the most suitable territories as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for the conservation of those species listed in Annex I of the Directive and for regularly occurring migratory species. The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) of my Department has regard to the obligations of Article 4 of the Birds Directive when identifying and classifying “the most suitable territories in number and size as special protection areas” for species listed in Annex I of the Directive and for regularly occurring migratory species.
Ireland’s recently identified marine Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), as characterised by BirdLife (BL) International and BirdWatch Ireland (BWI), are derived by the application of specific IBA selection criteria, which do not equate directly to Birds Directive obligations. It would be inappropriate to assume that all seabird IBAs warrant classification as SPAs, as the criteria driving the IBA process and the SPA process are different. Notwithstanding this, the NPWS and BL/BWI used much of the same data in the two respective analyses and some of the marine areas characterised as IBAs are already SPAs or candidate SPAs for marine birds, and more may be in due course.
The NPWS is now in the final stages of the scientific analysis required to classify its most suitable marine territories, nationally, as SPAs. The SPA Network will not include every foraging area for every species listed as a Special Conservation Interest at every SPA, given the far-reaching foraging behaviour of many of these species and will focus on “the most suitable territories”. The first of the new marine SPAs to be notified publicly is the candidate North-West Irish Sea SPA. When the final marine SPAs have been classified, the NPWS will be in a position to demonstrate the coherence of the marine SPA Network, species by species.
