Mr. Francis O'Donnell:

Is that a direction? With regard to the agencies I am talking about, we work very well with them but from time to time, they undertake emergency works and we have to go out into the field. In some cases, we initiate a prosecution. That is not a place where Inland Fisheries Ireland should be. I do not think it is good for State agencies to be in that position. So far, legislation is saying we have to do one thing with regard to our legal protections: that we go out into the field, stop a guy in a JCB on a Saturday morning undertaking works where there is a freshwater pearl mussel population, which is the remit of the NPWS downstream, where there is habitat destruction or maybe salmon eggs being dug up from the river. They are saying to us that their powers allow them to do this. Have they the screening done? They say that they do not think they need to do it. We are saying, "No". It is well past time that these things were teased out.