Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their statements and contributions. It is safe to say that on the back of their contributions, we will have much stronger legislation, particularly around the issues of biodiversity and nature-based solutions. That is my hope anyway.

I will touch on the points made by Deputy Bruton on what is included in the items and issues to which we must have regard. If we are to have regard to issues such as the economy, sustainable development, agriculture and climate justice, I would certainly feel that biodiversity should be another of those elements. There is a task there in trying to accommodate everything.

My question probably does not apply to the Bill and will not change anything in it in terms of how it is made up but it relates to the science and it is for Professor Buckley. We were talking about the impact technologies would have on biodiversity. We talked about offshore and onshore wind farms.

I will give an example. Professor Buckley may not be able to give an answer but she may be able to point to some body of work. She mentioned the SIMBIOSYS project earlier. If ten acres of dairy land was earmarked for a solar or wind farm, would it be safe to say that the net impact of that on biodiversity would be positive? Obviously, the net impact on emissions would be positive but would it be safe to say that the net impact on biodiversity would be positive because we know dairy land is not the richest when it comes to biodiversity as opposed to ten acres of wind farm on raised bog? Would it have a net negative impact on biodiversity? Are there any studies on this?