Mr. Niall ? Donnch?:

I thank the Deputy. I will take some of the questions. Dr. Deirdre Lynn will take the others.

I will start with the farming community. The first responders to nature are the farmers. We believe in partnerships with the farming community. The reason the Burren project was so successful is that it was farmer-led, even if there was a degree of persuasion around it initially. It is really important to be in the business of persuading and understanding as distinct from being solely in the business of prosecution. To us, farmers are a key community and a key partner. They are the custodians of nature and the first responders to nature. Like any other business, farming has to respond to economic signals. The Deputy has hit the nail on the head. Where is the compensation, the reward and the economic return for the farmer? We believe that there is an economic return in nature because there are nature services that farming a different way for nature will yield. I am not just referring to carbon sequestration and carbon storage, but to clean water, better air quality, flood attenuation and so on. My colleagues are in a better position to talk about that.

On the higher authority issue, in the past number of years we have seen a step-up, if I can call it that, in the engagement across government with nature. That is not in any way to criticise previous Governments and so on. There were other priorities that perhaps pushed nature somewhat down the agenda. Certainly, in the past number of years the engagement with colleagues from the Department of Enterprise and Employment across to the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Environment, Climate and Communications has been incredibly positive. We see that, in particular, in the outcome of the draft national biodiversity action plan, which will be published in the next number of weeks. The engagement looks and feels different because it is different. Nature is firmly embedded across government thinking. As Mr. Bleadsdale said at the outset, there has to be a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society approach. For there to be a whole-of-society approach, there has to be a whole-of-government approach first. In the context of our day-to-day dealings, we can very much see and sense that reality now. I might refer to Dr. Lynn to speak to the specifics of where the most recent national biodiversity plan might have fallen short.