Dr. Peter Heffernan:

I apologise for having overlooked that question. In terms of the stage we are at on the Natura sites, as I am sure the Deputy is well aware, Ireland was faced after a court judgment of having to play a significant catch up and was in the scenario of being a test case for the rest of Europe in developing the ability to generate conservation objectives for Natura designated areas in the marine. That meant undertaking the most intensive data gathering and surveying and resurveying, as required, over the last three-year period. To be fair to the Departments involved, even in the economic downturn, they found resources, additional to the voted income to the institute, to fund that work. We have, through a combination of in-house capacity and outsourced work, executed a three-year intensive roadmap to gather the information. That data gathering exercise will be completed this year. To the best of my knowledge, as of the end this year there will be bays with conservation appropriate assessments for up to 200 licences and by the first quarter of next year we will have close to 300 licences in areas with appropriate assessments. The really hard catch-up work at the outset will be completed this year and that will enable the system to move forward. Appropriate assessment involves three steps, namely, the gathering of the scientific information, the National Parks and Wildlife Service then sets the conservation objective and in respect of any licensed activity or applications, we will advise the parent department, which is the licensing authority, an appropriate assessment based on those two previous steps and that is then fed into the consideration of any licences.