Dr. Martha O'Hagan-Luff:

To talk to the idea of biodiversity credits and to answer a part of the Chair's question, the economic forum produced a review of where this has been trialled elsewhere, and it has been trialled in other countries on a very targeted basis to protect, say, a wood or a particular natural resource.

I feel strongly that public sector money cannot achieve this alone and we need to crowd in private finance. The private sector could bring rigour to a results-based payment system for ecosystem services provided by land. I would see it very much as a blended approach. I mean farmers could benefit from both public subsidies and, in addition, money from the private sector.

On the supply of products to be funded, they exist and there are many excellent examples. There is a collaboration with Farming for Nature that can be funded. It already does very good things and produces very positive ecosystem services. It would be great if that work could be scaled up and the funding provided.

On the business side, the timing is very good because we have regulation coming from Europe under the EU Green Deal.  The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, CSRD, is already operational for some companies. The directive will come down the track for others in January 2024 and for smaller businesses the year after. Companies need to report on their impact on biodiversity. Ideally, they would have something to report that is a positive impact on biodiversity. We think there is a strong demand for this product from businesses and investors. Of course one needs the product to be authentic, verifiable and reliable. The advantage of this is that the product is local and Irish businesses can view their investments. They can view where the ecosystem services are provided and it is quite a local investment in nature recovery.