Mr. Niall Curley:

With regard to what Senator Dolan has said about healthy water, water quality, soil quality and a healthy environment that will increase our ability to continue to produce in general, the law builds on previous legislation in these areas. We have the water framework directive, the habitats directive and the water sludge directive. There is a variety of legislation that is being built upon and used for specific targets. The habitats directive is from 1992 and protection orders were put in place through Natura 2000. One of the main reasons this is a legally binding regulation is that when the directive has been assessed it has not been viewed as successful. In the opinion of the Commission this is due to having allowed it to be voluntary in the first place. The Commission is including legally binding targets in this so that member states will be pulled up and assessed as to why, where and how they are failing to achieve these targets. These targets are building on existing legislation.

The impact assessments are done per ecosystem. There are 12 impact assessment reports as part of this. Senator Dolan can check them out. There is one on soil. There is another on peatlands that I would check out as being of interest to Ireland. There are also the annexes. I have them open on my computer because this is all I do every day.