1900. Deputy Seán Kyne asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage whether any of our National Parks charge for visitor parking, if not whether there are plans to charge and to allow reinvestment of such monies generated into environmental works within the parks or within natura or protected areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62916/26]

The National Parks and Wildlife Service manages Ireland’s network of National Parks and Nature Reserves. These areas are primarily managed for nature conservation, while also facilitating appropriate public access for education and enjoyment of nature.

Public access to all our National Parks and Nature Reserves is provided free of charge and there are no plans to introduce charging at these sites. These are publicly owned natural assets and facilitating access – providing opportunities for greater learning and appreciation of nature – while fulfilling important conservation objectives remains the primary aim of this policy.

The introduction of admission or parking charges would raise a number of policy matters for consideration. Such charging would effectively create a financial barrier to access our National Parks. Under the current policy, restrictions on access or measures intended to discourage visitor numbers would generally only be considered where the number of visitors to a particular site was considered excessive or where their management/reduction was necessary for conservation or environmental reasons.

Further, any move to make the funding of individual sites even partially dependent on the number of visitors it receives would not be consistent with the important conservation role these sites have. The appropriate level of visitor access to a National Park or Nature Reserve should be determined by its conservation requirements and capacity rather than by a financial incentive to maximise visitor numbers.

This is one of the strengths of the Irish system when compared to the models employed elsewhere.

I am pleased to say that the Government maintains a policy of funding the National Parks and Wildlife Service robustly, ensuring its important conservation mission is kept separate from, and not at all dependent on, visitor numbers. Government investment in nature conservation continues to increase, year-on-year, with core funding for the NPWS rising from €28.7m in 2020 – which was, itself, a significant increase on previous years – to €53m in 2023, €69.1m in 2024, €78m in 2025 and to over €100m for the first time in 2026.