Mr. Brian Lucas:

I am head of the peatlands issues and land designation section in the Department. My role primarily relates to raised bogs and all issues around them. As I said earlier, we have a national raised bogs SAC management plan, which is focused on the restoration and conservation of the raised bogs and addressing the needs of turf cutters. For example, we have a turf compensation scheme that provides an annual payment for those who require it and I am responsible for the administration of that scheme. We are also trying to relocate turf cutters to non-designated bogs, which also falls under my responsibility. We are trying to restore the designated raised bogs, NHAs and SACs, and that also falls under my remit.

The focus of our Department and Minister is on the designated sites network. We have 52 raised bog SACs and 75 raised bog NHAs. The Minister's focus is very much on the site that had been designated under national and EU law. My section is focused on that.

There is also the national peatlands strategy to which I referred earlier. An implementation group for that strategy brings together representatives from a number of departmental and State agencies and has an independent chair. The Departments of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Communications, Climate Action and Environment are represented on that group.