Mr. Niall ? Donnch?:

The Deputy mentioned the reduction in funding post 2008 at the outset in the context of addressing the banking crisis and so on and the moratorium on recruitment. In several respects, we see the impact of that on SACs. There are 424 special areas of conservation within the ambit of that case. The Commission contended - we believe incorrectly - that we had not transposed the directive sufficiently in respect of those 424 sites. There are three tests of transposition. First, are they protected in law; are they protected through the planning system? The answer to that, as anyone here who works in the planning system, is an unequivocal “Yes”. From the moment they were notified to the Commission, every single one of those 424 sites was protected through the planning system. Second, was there a statutory instrument, SI, backing each of those 424 sites? In that respect, we needed to up our game. As of today, 401 of those sites that have full SI backing to reinforce the protections we have through the planning system.

The third test is whether we have site-specific conservation objectives for each of those 424 sites. We now have a full complement of site-specific conservation objectives for each of the qualifying interests. The qualifying interests would differ. The Chair will be very appreciative of this in the context of raised bogs etc. The qualifying interests differ from site to site. The other test, which is challenging and where there is probably a degree of exposure, is did we have comprehensive conservation measures in respect of each qualifying interest on each of those sites? We tended to deal with conservation measures on a programmatic basis, that is, a national programme as distinct from a site-specific programme. We now have a nature conservation directorate within the NPWS as a result of the review. We have comprehensive sets of measures, some more comprehensive than others, in respect of all of those sites. I believe significant inroads have been made in this respect. We mounted quite a robust defence and, I need to be careful here, but given the direction of travel in the Advocate General opinion published in February, it seems there may be some challenges around that. It will not go to immediate fines, we understand. If the ECJ finds against us, that goes back to the Commission. There has been significant engagement with the European Commission on the significant progress being made here. We have 424 subject SACs. There are 127,000 NATURA network sites. We know that, in respect of the other member states, that a huge number of those are not as compliant as we are. We are actually leading the charge here. There are very significant impacts for other European member states if there is a finding against us. In some respects, that is feeding into the sense of unease about the direction of travel on the nature restoration regulation. I do not know if the Deputy wants me to address that.