Dr. Se?n O'Leary:

Obviously, there are things like environmental designations under the birds and habitats directives, policies on one-off housing in the open countryside and a range of other policies, objectives in development plans and different landscape designations, which can vary from local authority to local authority, even if it might be a similar landscape. There are already some commitments which we have called out in the opening statement, like the absence of a national landscape character assessment which would try to bring some consistency to that and which is three, if not four, years overdue.

In terms of the capacity for mapping, there are opportunities, as we understand it, coming from the regional approach that is being taken, and that is possibly something that the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and others could contribute to in order to try to bring that to one place, so every local authority is not trying to do its own mapping. However, as Mr. Lawlor said, there are more of these designations, policies and objectives coming down, so it is getting more complicated, not less.