Mr. Richard Cronin:

I am not sure I can commit to going into that level of detail but this overriding public interest clause is a standard clause that is in the habitats directive too. Its inclusion and use may be separate issues. We have recognised in our reading of this that it needs further qualification in some way. The objective here, through things like the development policy statement, is to avoid those spatial conflicts as much as possible.

There was one question about restoration that I hoped to answer before the Deputy left. Restoration as an activity or conservation objective is completely acceptable. The short answer is that it can be done. If one has identified that a habitat is in a low condition and wants to move it to a better condition, restoration is the way to do that. The question is whether it is a natural restoration process or an active restoration process. In some of the exchanges we had this morning, we talked about the planting of seagrass meadows. That is active restoration and intervention. Passive restoration might just involve the removal of a pressure and allowing something to recover. Restoration can be included as one of the outcomes after looking at the state of the habitat or species and where one wants it to be and what the objective is.