Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I raise something in the context of COP15 in Kunming in October. What is Dr. Lynn's sense of the appetite that is there to review very long-standing national legislation? I am thinking of the Arterial Drainage Act 1945, which I looked at recently, and I found a paper written by a young researcher in the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, named Richard Bruton who explored the matter in depth. I find he is sitting opposite me now, and he might wish to contribute on the point.

The Arterial Drainage Act was placed on the Statute Book primarily to facilitate the draining of land for agriculture. It is fair to say that the impact of the Arterial Drainage Act is that the ability of much of our land to hold on to its water has been compromised. It has led to much downstream flooding, including flash flooding. We know this is an issue with the management of flooding and we must consider it in that way but I am also thinking of biodiversity. There must be serious implications for biodiversity in this country, particularly in wetter land, due to the Arterial Drainage Act. It is 51 years since the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. It does not seem consistent to me that we would have an Act - a pillar of the Statute Book - that requires us to drain so much land annually. We spend much time doing so as well and it seems much of that money could be turned over to biodiversity restoration instead of investing it in draining land. I am interested to hear Dr. Lynn's views of that, if she has any.