Is Eamon Ryan a wolf in a woollen suit?

Eamon Ryan put himself top of the strange political pronouncement charts on Tuesday when he called for wolves to be re-introduced into the wild in Ireland.

For the record, the last wolf was killed in 1786 in the Blackstairs mountains. There is no proof that a young John Kelly from nearby Killane was involved, but the timelines are compatible.

Much has changed in the intervening 233 years – the French Revolution in 1789 for a start – but the TD from the wilds of Dublin Bay South wants to wind the clock back in some Jurassic Park experiment.

The Green Party leader believes wolves should have a place in Ireland’s environment and would contribute positively to the ecosystem and the State’s national habitat – in part by thinning the herd of wild deer that are a genuine problem.

Maybe Ryan hopes that we could train the next generation of wolves to selectively hunt grey squirrels while leaving our native red squirrels alone

There would be an irony overload if one of Ryan’s wolfpacks killed the last curlew or golden eagle. Perhaps some farmers struggling under the restrictions of SPA/SAC designation would actually invite wolves to roam across their lands in the hope that they would prove a permanent solution to the presence of the hen harrier on their lands. Maybe Ryan hopes that we could train the next generation of wolves to selectively hunt grey squirrels while leaving our native red squirrels alone.

Josepha Madigan, as Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Minister, is somehow the responsible member of government.

“The reintroduction of a large predator which has been absent for 250 years might undermine existing conservation programmes and would do considerable damage to farming,” Madigan said in a tweet.

The awful thing about this is that farmers and environmental activists need each other

So the woman who assisted Maria Bailey in preparing her “swing-gate” application to the personal injuries assessment board can see that this is a daft idea.

The awful thing about this is that farmers and environmental activists need each other. Farming needs to be environmentally sustainable to survive, and any attempt to protect biodiversity and combat climate change needs the active support and buy-in of the farming community, who are the owners and guardians of the vast majority of this nation’s acres.

Statements like this one from Eamon Ryan only serve to build mistrust. The same, incidentally, could be said for the tone-deaf, anti-fact pronouncements of climate change from the likes of Danny Healy-Rae – this cuts both ways.

How about we all agree to stop talking nonsense for a few weeks?