Dr. Liam Lysaght:

I thank the committee for inviting me to address it. I will speak about a specific and small aspect of the proposed foreshore Bill. As it is probably useful for the committee to be aware of the service we provide, I will give a brief and succinct overview of our role. I will be happy to answer any questions that are asked after that.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre is pleased to be invited to make a submission to the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht on the outline heads of the Maritime Area and Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2013. The data centre welcomes the commitment in the proposed legislation to develop a modern consent process for offshore and onshore activity and to implement the EU marine strategy framework directive. The approach in the Bill to streamlining the consent process and subjecting it to a single environmental impact assessment is also welcome as it should deliver efficiencies in terms of policy implementation. The National Biodiversity Data Centre provides services to the public and private sectors. Therefore, it is outside my remit to comment on specific aspects of policy development. Having said that, the data centre has a key role in assisting the introduction of informed decision-making, particularly as it relates to aspects of the management of Ireland's biodiversity resource and natural heritage.

The National Biodiversity Data Centre was established as a reflection of the importance of biodiversity, which is the modern way to describe this national asset. Most people use the term "nature conservation". In 2008, a Government report estimated that biodiversity contributes €2.6 billion to the Irish economy each year. This vital national asset makes this quantified contribution through unseen ecosystem goods and services. The National Biodiversity Data Centre was set up to assist in the management of this vital national resource. It is well known that the geographical location of the island of Ireland on the edge of the continental shelf, abutting the deep waters of the true North Atlantic Ocean and influenced by the temperate oceanic climate, means we have a unique biodiversity that is found nowhere else in the world. It is important to stress that "unique" means "unique". There is nowhere else on the globe with this combination of factors. I do not think it is sufficiently recognised as a huge national asset.

The composition and interaction of species, habitats, ecosystems and - importantly - human activity demonstrates that this is a valuable resource that clearly provides opportunities for sustainable exploitation. Its uniqueness means there is a special responsibility on Ireland to manage this resource effectively.

Some of these responsibilities are outlined in international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the OSPAR Convention, which is for the protection of the marine environment of the north-east Atlantic, the Ramsar Convention, that is the convention on wetlands of international importance, and is also enshrined in European legislation, such as the EU habitats and birds directives, the environmental impact assessment directive and so on.

The common theme of these responsibilities for sustainable management is that the effective management of this resource, dealing with the environmental aspects and using it as a resource to exploit, must be based on informed decision making to ensure they are both economically and environmentally sustainable. It is recognised that the proposed maritime area and foreshore (amendment) Bill sets out a framework and process to introduce informed decision-making as it relates to the marine environment and to the coastal area. As such it is a welcome development.

The question is where does the data centre fit in. We have a defined but, perhaps, quite important remit that can assist. I shall give the committee a brief overview of the data centre. We are a national organisation responsible for the collection, collation, management, analysis and dissemination of data or information on Ireland's biological diversity. It was established by the Heritage Council in 2007 and is funded by the Heritage Council and the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The data centre is overseen by a management board, the members of which are listed in my submission.

The key point to note is that our work is cross-cutting. We try to engage with the private and public sector and try to deal with volunteers and the research community and public bodies. We are at the interface of this diverse group of sectoral interests. The directors of many of the relevant statutory bodies, State agencies and cultural institutions are represented on it. We have a small staff of six based at Waterford Institute of Technology and we are good value for money.

One of the key planks of our work is to develop a national information management system for Ireland's biodiversity and to make the data freely and universally available in a format that will enable the data to be used for policy implementation, research and building the knowledge base. One of the systemic weaknesses in terms of managing biodiversity in the past is that it has usually been seen as a problematic area. It is always at the end of the development process that some problem arises and then nature conservation biodiversity gets a bad name. It is seen as an impediment to development. We are now at a stage where we have modern state-of-the-art infrastructure. We have a data management system which means that information can feed into the decision making process early on. We hope that biodiversity and nature conservation will become as much a part of good planning and part of the routine as other aspects of development. We are hoping to streamline that.

We have developed a state-of-the-art data portal where any person can access the data. We have democratised the whole issue about freedom of information and access to data. One can be at home with one's PC and one will get exactly the same access to data as somebody working in a university or public body. It is a fundamental shift in terms of democratisation of information, of which we are quite proud. We have mobilised 100 data sets of all aspects of Ireland's biodiversity. Currently there are 2.5 million observations in the system and we have data on close to 14,000 species that occur in Ireland. There are about 40,000 species found in Ireland. It is a work in progress but every month we are adding to the database. By the end of the year we may have close to 3 million observations on it. It is important to note that the system deals with the terrestrial land based biodiversity and it is fully integrated with the marine. It is one few places where there is interface between the terrestrial and the marine. There is a seamless interaction-integration in that area. If issues arise where offshore development may potentially impact on onshore or terrestrial we have a seamless presentation of data to enable better decisions to be made. It is important to mention that we are not just a warehouse for data but much of our work involves analysing the data. Data are only as good as what they are telling us.

We work with our key partners the State bodies, researchers, national experts. We have a whole programme of analysis of the data. It is one thing to mobilise the data but what is important is that they are telling us in terms of increasing our knowledge base. We have done much work in that regard.

The overall objective of what we are doing is to use empirical data to see the biodiversity resources of the country and by doing some analysis to say how it is changing. We hope that can feed in a format that can feed into policy development and ultimately lead to better informed decisions that will benefit biodiversity.

By way of summation, what exactly is this service and what kind of data management do we provide on behalf of the State and what aspects of the work might be of direct relevant to the heads of the Bill and implementation of the legislation? We undertake a large exercise in collating data from the private and public sectors and from those working in a professional and voluntary capacity. We are at the crossroads trying to bring various partners together. The engagement we have with the research community would be very different from the engagement we have with local communities. That data is of value no matter from where it comes. The value one ascribes to it is what we must note. As we are at the coalface of decision making, we have to ensure there is high quality data. All of the data on our system is fully validated and adheres to the highest international data quality standards.

An important role for us is to have more and better quality data on Ireland's protected and threatened species. We put effort into collating this. For that suite of species it is important to try to get information available to people who are potentially making decisions. One of the weaknesses up to now is not that planners do not want to take environmental or nature conservation concerns on board but the short time period in which to make a decision. Usually, if they have to go seeking information it does not get there. We now have the information mobilised fairly quickly and anybody working in any office can access it straightaway. It is not password protected. We hope it will improve accessibility of data for key decision making.

As we have a brief for both the terrestrial and the marine environment our system technically deals with Irish grid references for projection systems on land and latitude-longitude for the marine area but it does transcend the coastal fringe where we have a seamless flow of data. We can deliver empirical data as to the known occurrences of protected and threatened species with any designated site or with any land parcel within the coastal area. With our partners we analyse the data. There is much anecdotal evidence. My father used to speak of the demise of the cuckoo and that he had not heard it for years; of course, he had not because he moved from Kerry to living in inner-city Limerick. It is all very subjective.

We review existing data. There is an internationally recognised process for assessing whether a species is threatened with extinction. We apply this methodology to Irish data and come up with what is called conservation assessments or red lists. We can say objectively that for a group of birds, x percentage of those are threatened with extinction. It means we can prioritise conservation effort. It reduces the ability of people to muddy the water in terms of their pet subject if we can provide objective data to help the process.

We have been working closely with the EPA and provide data to make the scoping exercises for appropriate assessments and environmental impact assessments under the habitats directive more efficient.

Basically, if surveys have been done in the past and data have been collected for some purpose, we try to ensure the data are archived with the National Biodiversity Data Centre and that the data are available for any other purpose. This provides added value for work that has been done, rather than reinventing the wheel, and also ensures the data archived informs future decision making.

We are a service provider to the public sector and one of the key aspects of our strategic plan is the facility to customise our online tools and data management systems to meet the specific requirements of any of the public bodies we work with. We have an active programme with organisations like the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Inland Fisheries Ireland and some of the local authorities in trying to make our system more user friendly for them.

My introduction may be slightly tangential to the subject matter of the Bill, but I believe is of value to the committee to be aware of this. I am happy to elaborate on any aspects.