Una Mullally: If you think €10m is pricey for the Conor Pass, try going on Daft

I did a triple take when I saw the Conor Pass in Co Kerry was “for sale”. Is this for real? And then the price – €10 million. What a steal! What a fantastic opportunity for the State to purchase, protect, replenish and maintain Ireland’s natural landscape. We need to end barrenness and begin multiple projects for Ireland to become lush and verdant.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he’s interested in the State buying it in theory, but thinks €10 million is a bit steep. I doubt he’s been on Daft recently if he thinks that’s a lot of wedge for a potential national park generations could enjoy. Oh that we had such a bargaining mentality when it came to sinking money into the children’s hospital with the enthusiasm of a billionaire’s Monaco bar tab. I’m surprised BAM hasn’t taken to forwarding their latest bills to the Government in the form of a parade of sparklers sticking out of champagne bottles.

It’s hard to take the Taoiseach’s attitude towards the environment seriously, given his recent brainwave for Ireland’s sustainable transport future involved building more roads for private cars. But he is still in charge. And he should take charge.

Cost is quite different from value. The reality is the State should be buying land en masse to expand our national parks, create new ones, and rewild and replenish every hill, valley, mountainside, meadow, woods and wetland they can lay their eyes on. Land is going to get much more expensive in Ireland. The time is now. We need to stop treating nature as some sort of enemy, inconvenience or twee gimmick.

It’s funny how ‘unintended consequences’ always benefit landlords

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Given that Ireland will increasingly become an attractive location for wealthy climate refugees as the climate crisis worsens, we need to secure as much land as we can within State ownership

The tension between private and public land will always exist. While in Scotland, the country’s largest private landowners – Danish billionaires Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen – have set out their plans to restore the Highlands, relying on the good intentions of private landowners isn’t policy, it’s chance. Private wealth might be part of the answer in terms of raising capital for purchasing land initially, but the land should always go back to the State on behalf of the public. Otherwise, it could change hands forever, and with it, the value systems and aspirations of those who own it.

As Fintan O’Toole pointed out recently, Croagh Patrick is private property. In Wicklow, Magheramore beach, along with a clifftop, headland and access route is now owned by Creatively Pacific Ltd, a company headed up by Paddy McKillen jnr and Matt Ryan, founders of the Press Up Hospitality Group. Why didn’t the State buy this “property” when it came up for sale to secure it for generations of swimmers, walkers, campers and the plants and animals that call it home?

Given that Ireland will increasingly become an attractive location for wealthy climate refugees as the climate crisis worsens, we need to secure as much land as we can within State ownership. This means, yes, dramatically increasing the number and size of national parks. It means purchasing “big houses” that have large tracts of woodland – or potential for woodland – and maintaining and expanding that woodland. It means ensuring that the coastline is neither privately owned nor privatised. The State should be buying any islands off Ireland that come up for sale and ensuring their natural preservation. This process should absolutely not mean entering into deals with investment vehicles for commercial forestry, as Coillte has done. That is an appalling trajectory for biodiversity and our natural landscape.

As for existing national parks, Killarney National Park is essentially in a state of ecological collapse. Rhododendron is a disaster, and nowhere near enough is being done by the State to address that crisis. Anyone working to tackle rhododendron is a hero in my eyes. We need to help the land return to a functioning ecosystem, not a pretence of one, and certainly not one in a state of utter calamity as we currently have in Kerry. There are just 20 rivers and lakes in Ireland that are pristine. In the 1980s, that number was more than 500. We are going to be dragged through the European courts again and again for our ignorance, poor policy and recklessness. Thankfully, the Citizens’ Assembly on biodiversity loss has done great work on this, and all of its recommendations should be acted on.

Rural communities and farmers need to be paid to participate in what should be a brilliant, beautiful, inspiring, ambitious, world-leading project

We know what needs to be done. Banning open grazing, introducing and enforcing massive penalties for burning uplands, getting serious about unlicensed and illegal quarrying, ending the regressive, ecologically destructive Sitka plantation farming that dominates our faux “forestry”, further incentivising farmers and landowners to rewild at scale, as well as fostering indigenous woodland and temperate rainforest, is key to our survival. With a bit of help, protection and maintenance, the land regenerates naturally. Rural communities and farmers need to be paid to participate in what should be a brilliant, beautiful, inspiring, ambitious, world-leading project.

All of this will increase public wellbeing and tourism, and reduce the likelihood of future forest fires, while addressing river and lake pollution. It will see nature thrive. Future generations will thank us. The State must take an assertive role in this. Ireland looks green, but isn’t. Let’s live up to the perception, starting with the Conor Pass.