In 1984, the Irish, according to various studies, had the lowest level of environmental awareness in Europe. I do not take any particular credit, but I tried to raise many of the issues that have since become very much part of the country's lingua franca. By the time of the next election in 1989, things had begun to change, largely because the schools had begun to teach children about the environment. Our low level of environmental awareness was due mainly to our being a non-industrial country not subject to the same kind of cross-border environmental disasters, such as the pollution of the Rhine and European air pollution, though there was, of course, pollution here. I emphasise that the reason we have got to grips with environmental issues in this country is European legislation. It was only because it became absolutely de rigueur for us to implement many of those European directives that we began to wake up and see that we needed to do something on the issue.