Dr. M?che?l ? Cinn?ide:

If I can come back to a question from Deputy Bruton regarding some early wins to build confidence, I was thinking about this query in respect of this committee specifically having a role on legislation. I would pick out three issues that would fit this category of early wins. One is recommendation No. 21, which is that we have a new statutory national biodiversity action plan. We have had biodiversity plans since President Higgins was the Minister with responsibility. That was way back when we joined the Convention on Biological Diversity. Until now, all those plans have been non-statutory. In other words, they have been done on a voluntary basis, with few resources to back them. They plans were driven with a lot of goodwill by the National Parks and Wildlife Service but they were without teeth. If we compare that with the legal status of our climate action plan, the latter is much stronger. The next national biodiversity action plan is in the works and nearly completed. There has been a lot of consultation on it. This recommendation is calling for it to have statutory backing. It is doable and provided for now under the Wildlife Act 1976. It would be great if the committee recommended that the plan have statutory backing. That is very important. It would send a signal and build confidence, to use the Deputy's phrase.

The second aspect, which is also in the works, is on marine protected areas. I refer to recommendations Nos. 105 and 106. The Minister of State in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Malcolm Noonan, is preparing legislation on marine protected areas. The general scheme of the Bill has come out but not the details. Those are due in the next few months. This is another strong recommendation, and it has targets. The Deputy is correct that there are not many targets across the whole report, but we are basically reinforcing existing targets. In this case, there is one, which refers to 30% of our maritime area. This would be a second quick win, if the committee supported it. I know this has been spoken about before.

The third quick win concerns arterial drainage, which is recommendation No. 100. In a previous life many years ago, Deputy Bruton and Professor Frank Convery studied the effects of arterial drainage and its cost benefits. From that work up until today, it can be said that the cost benefit is something that, from a wider socioeconomic and environmental point of view, is questionable. The recommendation states clearly that the Arterial Drainage Act 1945, which gave great powers to the OPW back in a much different time, be reviewed, with inputs from the OPW, the EPA and the NPWS. If the State were just to start the process of formally commissioning that review, it would, admittedly, take some time but it absolutely needs to be done and the committee can recommend it.