Ms Ciara Carberry:

It very much is. We are very heartened by the support of the committee and the support we have had from the Government to move forward in those types of spaces.

The Natura network in Ireland is expanding, particularly in the marine area. This is a big area of focus for us at present. We are navigating all the challenges that come with this. We had the largest ever designation of a site for birds this year in the north-west Irish Sea. This covers an area of 220,000 ha. There will be another designation of a similar magnitude before the end of the year. The committee will see it very shortly. Moving around, we have three in the pipeline and hopefully there will be big movement on that next year.

At the moment we are still building our capacity. There is a huge demand for marine ecologists across the entire sector in Ireland and in Europe. Like everybody else who is operating in the sector, we have recruitment challenges. Every large company is trying to upskill in the sector. We are very lucky, in that people want to work for us.

They come to us and they stay, but that does not mean it is easy to recruit or find these people. Other colleagues working in the sector tell us they have to advertise Europe-wide to try to get people. The support we have had is fantastic. The profile we have now is much better. We are a desired employer for people in those areas but we still have huge challenges. We are moving in the right direction but these things are really complex. For the first time ever, in terms of substantial land acquisition and new designations, all the indicators are going the right way but we are far back. Mr. Ó Donnchú mentioned 2008, to where we have finally got ourselves.