Mr. David Scallan:

To return to the question on implementation, in its joint submission the national uplands working group advocates a tiered system for the scheme. This would have three tiers, comprising the single farm payment, greening and cross compliance on one tier; a basic agri-environment scheme covering hedgerows and stone walls on another; and above and beyond these a tier where schemes such as this would fit quite well. It would have a voluntary component targeted at farmers to maintain the high nature value of their farms. Much of this is based on what the committee heard several weeks ago on the Burren farming conservation programme, which is a very successful cost-effective programme. It is recognised nationally and internationally as being a good outputs-driven way to incentivise farmers to do work. It involves very simple farm plans, which is the only way a scheme of this nature could work and be administered. To reduce the burden and cost of such schemes, they should be administered under one system.

There were a couple of other questions. If we want to initiate the scheme we have a good chance at the moment due to CAP reform and the Department conducting a public consultation on the matter. There is a very effective amount of energy now in place and a diverse range of stakeholders and semi-State agencies have calling for the scheme to be established. It would be bad to miss this opportunity particularly as the uplands have been neglected from an agri-environment point of view in recent years.

A good question was asked about predator control. A lot of work in the UK on upland birds, where habitat management like heather regeneration was combined with predator control, has shown good results for red listed birds such as red grouse, breeding curlew and golden plover. Predator control will also improve the ecological conditions for a range of other bird species including birds of prey. My colleague, Mr. Sean Doris, shall briefly respond to a good question asked about the NARGC position on mink.