Mr. Ed O'Donovan:

One final thing to pick up on is Ms Lawlors's point about the new mechanism under the Aarhus Convention that applies to states' parties that are mostly in Europe and Central Asia. The parties to the Aarhus Convention have recognised the risks faced by environmental human rights defenders in those countries. As a result, they have put in place a rapid response mechanism to help aid protection of those people. Ireland and Austria are leading on that rapid response mechanism. The latter signifies that Ireland recognises this as an issue and that one of its priorities is supporting human rights defenders. It recognises the risks face by defenders and is showing support for this through the creation of this new mechanism of the Aarhus Convention. We would like to see this being coherently reflected in the European directive as well.