Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I congratulate the Minister and Ministers of State on their appointment. On the special areas of conservation and natural heritage areas, can the Minister produce a copy of the scientific evidence that led to the designation of those areas? The Minister knows there were many areas designated as SACs in the past and when scientific evidence for designation was requested, none existed. As an example, along the banks of the River Nore and the River Barrow, long stretches on both sides that ran as far as the edge of the second adjoining field, almost 200 metres, were designated as special areas of conservation. The IFA kicked up against this because it was a major imposition and, lo and behold, scientific evidence was produced and the SACs were reduced to within a couple of metres of the riverbank on the basis that there was no scientific evidence to designate the original boundaries. Someone drew a line on a map without scientific evidence when this should only be done on the basis of proper evidence. The Minister spoke about a scientific basis for planning and there is a duty to ensure such evidence exists. If it exists, we will stick with it but if it does not we should re-examine the boundaries.

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