Ms Sinead O'Brien:

Under that letter we are also not fulfilling regulations for controls of hydromorphology. I like to imagine it as anything that involves going near a water body with a digger. At the moment there is very little regulation on dredging, channelising or draining wetlands. Again, this does lead back to abstraction because it will help us to become resilient with climate change. If we are draining wetlands and abstracting water and we do not know where it is being abstracted, and if that is happening, for example, in a special area of conservation, then suddenly we have no climate resilience and are non-compliant with the water framework directive and the habitats directive. This Bill should therefore be helping us to build a picture of the cumulative impacts of many pressures on a water body and also helping us to build resilience; it is doing neither of those things.