Mr. Tony Smyth:

Deputy Stanley asked about the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

To be fair to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, there is a body of European and national legislation governing what can and cannot be done on environmental studies. As part of our major flood relief programmes we will always carry out a full environmental impact assessment. Environmental consultants would be engaged at the same time as the engineering consultants in order to examine the possible environmental constraints on the various flood mitigation options and as far as possible building those into the design. I am not aware of any significant delays on major works. I am aware that on minor works, certainly in the Shannon area, it has caused delays because there was no economic way to do what locals had requested, which was to move silt and distribute it on the land. There were concerns about damage to the environment and we were unable to proceed with some of those minor works. That tends to be more of a problem with minor works rather than with the major ones where we have the resources to do all the various environmental studies and influence the design of schemes in that way.

I can certainly provide a list of rivers for which we have responsibility. We will issue that to the committee.

Last year's outturn was €7.5 million ahead of the allocation. The allocation was €45 million and we spent €52 million. So it was more than and not less than. We found savings from other things.