Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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Is the situation not pretty bleak? I refer to some of the statistics that were given in the opening statement: 85% of Ireland's habitats are assessed to be in unfavourable conservation status; 46% of habitats are reported to be in decline; and 60% of species listed under the habitats directive are recorded as having favourable conservation status, but that presumably means that 40% have a less than favourable, or an unfavourable, conservation status.

Dr. Bleasdale also mentioned, and this could be taken two ways, that the assessment results are similar to the EU average and are no surprise. People could hear that and think we are no worse than the rest of Europe, but what it is actually telling us is that the biodiversity issue is very deep, very wide and is all across Europe. Is that the case?