Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, biodiversity is something the Government takes extremely seriously. We have approximately €60 million under the Project Ireland 2040 plan going specifically into biodiversity. As I said, I held the first biodiversity conference this year and we had 40 seeds of nature which was stemming from that. There are a number of biodiversity initiatives that we are currently implementing.

In relation to the data centre, it is not an agency. It is a name given to a programme which was established by the Heritage Council in 2006. It addressed the need identified by the council that data on Ireland's biodiversity be collected, recorded and fully accessible to the public. The programme has been operating under two publicly-tendered contracts entered into between the council and Compass Informatics, which is a private company. The team working on biodiversity data collection are employees of Compass Informatics, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Tracsis plc.

The Heritage Council is currently finalising a contract extension with Compass Informatics to collect biodiversity data into 2020. Concurrently, a review is being undertaken by the council and this is examining the governance and operating and financial models underpinning this work. The outcome of that review will inform the next request for tender. However, like all public contracts, this work is subject to public procurement rules. The Heritage Council's contract with Compass Informatics has been very important in the collection of biodiversity data for public policymaking and decision-making. Under the terms of its contract, the data collected are the intellectual property of the Heritage Council. The Heritage Council is the owner of the name, the National Biodiversity Data Centre, and rents the property in which the team works, so it is not a corporate entity, nor does it have a board or employees, nor, indeed, a bank account.