Mr. Joe Hamill:

To pick up on the last point first, the Commission believes we have far more possibilities, such as the LIFE programme. There has been a very good LIFE programme in the Burren for a number of years. We have launched two more LIFE programmes, one on the Aran Islands in the past 18 months and another in Kerry which has just begun. We are looking at others. These are very much geared towards local farmers coming on board and working with people in the community. It is fair to say the Burren programme started in a suspicious context when farmers were not too sure about it. I was there recently when it received a European award and there was a great sense of co-operation and positive engagement. The number of farmers who wanted to join the programme on the Aran Islands exceeded the number which could do so. These programmes are small at this stage, but their approach is successful.

What we have always tried to say, which perhaps has not always been appreciated, is that in many cases farmers create or maintain these habitats. It is not the case that we do not acknowledge this. The difficulty is trying to balance the various interests. It has been said at different times that we have been too focused on science and not enough on social implications. The problem is this is what the directives require us to do, to assess the science and put in place systems which people can appeal. The appeals board has heard appeals in recent months and upheld some of them. Such processes are in place.

The bogs controversy certainly brought it home to me that the biggest deficit in all of this was that people felt they were not being listened to and did not have enough chances to say their piece. This is certainly something we have been discussing. We have been looking at how we operate and how we engage with communities. With regard to the hen harrier, we are trying to establish a system with a good consultative committee which will feed into a response threat plan which will, hopefully, help to give us a bit of flexibility.

I do not question the legitimacy of any of this, but it is very much a balancing act in Europe between the Commission, legal obligations, farmers, the regulatory authorities and the NGOs, and it is about trying to get it all to work in a reasonable way. I acknowledge that at times it is very difficult in individual cases and sometimes there may not be many options. Coming back to the bogs, we are trying to find a national approach whereby we can tell the Commission we are protecting areas but that it will not work in some places and that we would like to dedesignate a small number and compensate in another way. To do this we must have a national approach and we do not have this over the line, with some of the interest groups not quite engaging on it in recent times. This is how we are trying to move it forward. It is very complex.