Dr. Anita Donaghy:

The Deputy asked about snipe and the 50% decline in the snipe population. Yes, it has largely been due to habitat loss and degradation, that is, damage to peatlands, loss of wetlands and degradation and fragmentation of habitats. That in turn has led to a serious increase in the levels of predation. That is not just for snipe but for all the ground nesting birds, including curlew and lapwing, but particularly snipe. Predation by general predators, crows and foxes, in particular, has a very serious impact on the ability of these birds to produce young every year. The reason we are seeing sustained declines is failure at the nesting chick stage in general. That is on top of what is happening to their habitats.

The Deputy asked about agri-environment schemes as well and if we have any examples of the successful implementation of schemes. Obviously, successive agri-environment schemes in Ireland have become more targeted at biodiversity. The green, low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, for example, has increased its suite of priorities for adoption, and that is welcome. We all have mentioned the EIPs. For many reasons that is the route we would want to see - agri-environment payments being delivered in a much more local and targeted level where a suite of biodiversity is encapsulated in one scheme.

The Shannon callows agri-environment project was a precursor to the current draft of the EIP. The restoration of farm bird populations is not something that can happen in the short term. There are not many examples of the implementation of agri-environment schemes resulting in increases in populations in a relatively short time because it takes much longer to restore these bird populations.