Dr. Aoife Ní Lochlainn:

I thank Mr. Finucane for that question. We also made a submission to the consultation on PEACE PLUS and, along with our colleagues in Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Environment Link, we wrote a letter to the Special European Union Programmes Body regarding our concerns about the level of funding for nature and biodiversity. We really welcome that environment and climate will receive quite a bit of funding in the next round. However, a large proportion of that will go on infrastructural expenditure such as transport. What we are arguing is that nature and biodiversity deserves a much larger piece of the pie essentially and we would hope to see, when the programme is finally signed off, that biodiversity, nature and the marine would see a larger share of the funding. I would be very hopeful that our membership groups in the Border area will be in a position to apply for PEACE PLUS funding for cross-Border environmental projects. Certainly, we will be working with them to make sure that they have the capacity and knowledge that is required to make an application in the first place.