Mr. Eamon Gilmore:

Yes it does. There has been a very strong programme. Part of the peace dividend was very much to be, first of all, around the protection of forests and the protection of the ecosystem. The intention is that protection work will be part of the re-incorporation effort of former combatants, that they would be working in parks situations. I have seen the illegal mining. I have been on rivers where one can see the dredgers. This is no longer people with shovels and sieves. One is talking about seriously big industrial-scale dredgers gouging out the sides of rivers, destroying the plant life, destroying the river itself and presenting a really serious environmental problem and a serious security problem. The European Union is funding a number of projects. There have been some projects where local people, local communities work as kind of guardians of the river. From a community point of view they provide some protection for the river, or some effort to protect rivers and the ecosystem. That is part of the projects that are being supported by the European Union and some member states. There is quite a lot of this mining. A lot of this is taking place in parts of the country which are physically remote where there is very little infrastructure and where there is very little presence of the state.