Dr. Ciaran O'Keeffe:

I will elaborate on two points. Mr. Paud Evans responded to a question on the pressure to a considerable extent but we have a monitoring committee called the SAC monitoring committee which is between the National Parks and Wildlife Service and all the farming organisations including ICSA as well as IFA, ICMSA and so on.

During the past couple of years sorting out the commonage plans has been a major issue and in particular allowing restocking, on which we were keen because of the undergrazing issue. In that context and recognising that collective responsibility is difficult, the mantra has been freedom to farm and that does suggest to some extent that where one can do it, collective responsibility would be a good way to go but we recognise that is not particularly simple in the large commonages.

To return to the issue of fencing in respect of sorting out overgrazing issues, our experience is that adding fencing to the hill makes for additional new lines as obviously the sheep will walk the fence and one starts to run into new problems. There is a temptation to hold large number of animals at certain times. It might solve one problem but very often it creates a new problem elsewhere.