Mr. Niall ? Brolch?in:

On the Arterial Drainage Act, the answer is “Yes”. Basically, the key aspect of the Arterial Drainage Act is that much of the drainage work in the country is managed by the Office of Public Works, OPW. However, the sort of thinking behind the Arterial Drainage Act from 1945 was quite different from the thinking now. I described the low-hanging fruit. It would not be particularly controversial to say that we need to bring in measures to ensure that the water levels are raised to the highest level possible consistent with the current type of land use. That should not be a frightening thing for anybody. Teagasc, for example, will have clear views as to what levels it can be raised to that are consistent with farmland, for example. That is a low-hanging fruit and I think at minimum that will be done. Obviously, in Indonesia, they are very concerned about their land drying out for fires and so on, so they have taken pretty drastic measures. However, it is worth looking at the sort of systems that have been put in place. Again, I refer the Senator to Professor Hans Jooston, who is the head of the Greifswald Mire Centre in Germany. He has extensive experience in hydrology and the best way to do this for peatlands.

We have an issue, indeed, of bogs burning in Ireland during the summer. That happens involuntarily – obviously, some of it is deliberately done – for various different reasons, but one of them can be that the peat dries out considerably in the summer and it probably should not, in many cases. Having wet peat is advisable and it is very beneficial for a whole load of nature-based solutions in relation to water as well. I hope that answers the question.