Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy
CLEAR Report on Lady's Island Lake: Discussion
2:00 am
Dr. Andy Bleasdale:
No, it is fine. It is actually worth repeating because it is a very busy space. We have the water framework directive, the co-ordination across the Department of agriculture of the schemes it runs that are intended to protect water, and we have our own water division in our Department, which manages the water action plan and the zoning of the country with regard to certain catchments that are more sensitive than others. Then there is our role within the National Parks and Wildlife Service in the context both the SAC and SPA networks. We are talking about one lake here that is only one of 441 SACs we have to manage nationally, and only one of the SPAs out of 167 we manage nationally. The question is how we pivot and turn our attention to one extremely problematic area, that is, Lady's Island Lake in this case. We are saying we need to pull all of the responsible Departments, agencies and bodies together in a think-tank or to constitute a task force. This would work out, regardless of the national problems that exist everywhere and need to be resolved yesterday, how we plan for tomorrow in the context of Lady's Island Lake, look at the existing schemes, controls and responsibilities of each of those players, almost leave all of that at the door and work out how we work together to provide solutions, including the funding piece but, more importantly, the co-operation and collaboration.
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