Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I have a couple of questions for whoever wants to pick up on them. Something we hear when we broach these issues is our starting point as regards the information we have and the detail in our accounting of our natural resources, of different types of soil types and what contribution individual landowners or farmers are making to biodiversity.

I would like the witnesses' perspective on that. What is to stop us starting with acting now? What are the initial steps that might give us a decent foundation for implementing schemes? What about the prospect of a nature restoration fund and an infrastructure climate and nature fund? What are the factors the witnesses might look for in those as a appropriate designs?

The public versus private funding for this being 92% versus 8% comes as no surprise to me. Dr. O'Hagan-Luff mentioned a trading system not being about offsetting damage done, but in many respects that is what we live with at the minute, if we look at the trading systems we have. I am looking for some perspective on the design of schemes that might appropriately incentivise this new type of economy, as opposed to business as usual, which has been monetised or commercialised in a "nature-sensitive" way that allows lots of opportunity for extractive and exploitative practices.