Ms Sinéad O'Brien:

I might take the first question before deferring to my colleagues in An Taisce, who do an awful lot of work in forestry. The Deputy hit the nail on the head with her question about how we can ensure implementation. I too was struck by the figure of 37% of farmers who are not implementing the measures. This comes back to the recommendation both SWAN and the Water Forum are making, namely, that we need a centralised unit to oversee implementation. At the moment, there are some measures under forestry and measures ASSAP is implementing, but nobody is overseeing them and matching up the measures to results and targets.

We recommend a catchment-based approach, whereby a manager in each of the 46 catchment areas would oversee the implementation. Second, as was recommended last year by the Institute of Public Administration, there should be a river basin management plan secretariat within the Department that would examine the targets in the river basin management plan, plans that SWAN hopes will be more ambitious than they are currently are, and track and assess implementation as we go. In that way, we can resolve questions such as the Deputy's about why only two thirds of farmers are implementing measures, what the barriers are to that and how we can address them, and whether they can be supported. For example, perhaps some farmers are just not compliant and it is an enforcement issue. A central unit could address all those issues.

I will not take up much more time but might give a flavour for how complex this is. At the moment, operational groups in each region look at these various issues, such as forestry and agriculture in all the catchments in a region. Under them, there are regional operational groups, and there is also the water policy advisory committee at the highest, assistant secretary level. Under that, there is the national catchment management group, and under that again, the national implementation group. All the groups are doing good work, although some of them do not talk to one another. They are supposed to engage with the national Water Forum but they are not adequately engaging with us. It is very fragmented and also quite opaque. Our clear recommendation is that we need that central unit, within the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, to oversee the implementation and track its progress.