Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When the original designations were made in 1998 - this might be a good precedent to use with the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht because the current Secretary General of that Department was also Secretary General at that time and was centrally involved in this - a liaison committee was set up for each SAC, which comprised only farmers and officials from the Department. I think that would be a much better model of negotiation. In this case and to get the overall scheme in place in the first instance, there would be one liaison committee for all of the hen harrier areas. The delegates should highlight that liaison committees were put in place in 1998, that these were set up by the Department and their remit was to negotiate directly with the farmers involved rather than the farming organisations.