Ms Ciara Carberry:

Where we are at in respect of the particular infringement on SAC cases is instructive because it will inform the approach across the gamut of Natura sites. As Mr. Ó Donnchú mentioned, that case went to court and we received a judgment at the end of June 2023. As the Deputy will be aware, once we receive a judgment, we have a very limited period in which to demonstrate that in good faith, as a member state, we are working to resolve the matters identified in the judgment. We are in that period now. We are working very closely with the Commission to resolve the matters around the sites in question to the satisfaction of the Commission and also to our own satisfaction, and that it is doable and realistic.

In respect of the site designations piece and the statutory instruments, we are above 96% of sites that are done now and have published statutory instruments. In respect of site-specific conservation objectives, which were the second pillar of the case, we are at 100%. In respect of conservation measures, they are the actions the State takes to achieve the objectives. We have to set our objectives very clearly and then we have to set about actions to achieve them. That is obviously a really complicated thing to do. Many of our sites are very large. Very long river sites pass through eight, nine or ten counties. There are tens of thousands of landowners on some of our sites. There are multiple qualifying interests at the sites. A qualifying interest is what the site was designated for. We have engaged very positively with the Commission on building a reputation for reliability and credibility. To date, in our response to the judgment, we have done exactly what we said we would do, exactly when we said we would do it. The first two pillars, the statutory instruments and the objectives, are more or less boxed away. We have a bit of credibility there where we did not before in respect of the measures.

We have settled down on four pilot sites with the Commission and we are developing an agreed format for the type of information the Commission needs to be satisfied that Ireland has met its obligations in respect of those four sites. We are right in the middle of that process. We have a further meeting. We have met with the Commission and I have been over in Brussels twice. The Commission has been here and visited one of the sites in April. Speaking to Senator Moynihan's point, we had the CEO of the local authority at that, Inland Fisheries Ireland, the Marine Institute, the Department of agriculture and the Forestry Service. Everybody went together to look at the site. All of those public bodies and public authorities with responsibilities have fed into our records of what is happening at the site.

Previously, the thinking had been about what the National Parks and Wildlife Service was doing about the site but the question is much broader; it is about what Ireland is doing about the site. This is a very new approach to managing Natura sites. It is based on a template the Commission put forward and has been working with us on. It has started directing other member states to come here and look at what we are doing in that pilot. This is the approach the Commission wants at Natura sites. Of course, it is all very well doing this at four sites; the challenging piece is going to be rolling it out across 606 sites. That is the challenge for us coming down the line. When we started to collate the information, we found that there are hundreds of measures in place at those four sites.