Dr. Andy Bleasdale:

I thank the Senator. Those are two very good examples of progress that was made. The challenge is maintaining that progress over time, which is never easy. It is never the case that one just resolves a conservation issue and then walks away, and it is all sorted and done.

First, in the context of the Burren, we were the co-ordinating beneficiary of the BurrenLIFE project, as it was back in the day. There were only 17 farmers involved. We advocated very closely with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to expand that pilot phase into a Burren farming for conservation programme, which was very successful. It factorially increased the uptake of the farmers involved. They were supported for the efforts they invested in the management of those habitats within the Burren within three SACs. That then became the Burren programme. There were three steps in the progress and all was good so far. The final step was the ACRES co-operation project step, which the Senator mentioned. The ambition of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was to learn from the lessons in the Burren and apply them almost nationwide. Officials sought to do that across eight landscapes, including the Burren and Aran Islands. The difficulty with that step, according to Dr. Brendan Dunford, was that it was actually a step backwards for the Burren, although it might have been a step forward for the rest. We will, therefore, have to work that out. There is no silver bullet here but we have to learn from what was delivered in the Burren across each of those three first steps, which were really positive. If we are now encountering a step backwards, we will have to address that collectively across government, in conversation with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Its officials runs the scheme, so we cannot tell what they must do. However, we must also reflect on successes and failures, if there are failures. There are new data coming to light that show a backward step. Let us deal with that.