The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), part of Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DCHG), provides the legislative and policy framework for the conservation of nature and biodiversity in the Republic of Ireland. It also oversees its implementation, based on good science, with particular emphasis on the protection of habitats and species.

The current contract, which ran the Irish bat monitoring programme from 2015-2017, has come to an end. Refer to RfT.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), part of Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht (DCHG), provides the legislative and policy framework for the conservation of nature and biodiversity in the Republic of Ireland. It also oversees its implementation, based on good science, with particular emphasis on the protection of habitats and species. All bat species are protected under Irish and EU law. The EU Habitats Directive [92/43/EEC] further requires all Member States to undertake surveillance of annexed species [see Article 11 of the Directive]. NPWS is committed to implementing a robust national monitoring programme for all bat species.

We have built up an Irish Bat Monitoring Programme over the last 14 years, with 4 separate schemes established:

a) the car transect monitoring scheme;

b) the waterways bat monitoring scheme;

c) the brown long-eared bat monitoring scheme and d) the lesser horseshoe bat monitoring scheme. For the last three seasons, these four projects have been run together under one National Bat Monitoring contract.

The current contract, which ran the Irish bat monitoring programme from 2015-2017, has come to an end. Refer to RfT.