Mr. Richard Cronin:

What I was going to say just before the Deputy's question was that, in accelerating this work since December of last year, the Minister reconvened part of the expert body that produced the advisory report to carry out the ecological sensitivity analysis on that area of the eastern seaboard in order to bring greater certainty to those sites and to avoid conflict between their locations and ecologically sensitive or unique features that may need protection. This mitigation piece is already in train with the aim of being delivered this April. Head 13 could still be used for those designations in the Irish Sea.

I will add a caveat. We are not looking at the ongoing birds and habitats directives studies. Further work may still have to be done with those. What I am discussing is outside the birds and habitats directives. For example, the OSPAR Convention has produced a list of threatened and declining species, some of which are found in the Irish marine space. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, has a red list of species and habitats. These are the types of area we are considering and the group is doing a great deal of work. I believe a witness from it will appear before the committee next week.