Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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274. To ask the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht her plans to designate Lough Bane, County Westmeath, as a special area of conservation; and when this status will be conferred. [33712/16]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Lough Bane and Lough Glass (Site Code 002120) is a candidate special area of conservation and as such is a legally protected site. Ireland is required, under the EU Habitats Directive, to formally designate its special areas of conservation and a project is in place within my Department to oversee this process. This involves the adoption of a Statutory Instrument for each site. The making of Statutory Instruments is the final step in the designation of the existing special areas of conservation and does not place any new or additional conditions on landowners/users than already applied from the time the sites were first identified as candidate special areas of conservation.

Lough Bane and Lough Glass is scheduled to be formally designated within this process for the formal designation of special areas of conservation. Affected landowners/users will receive a notice by post to advise them that the final, formal element in the designation of the site has been completed by the publication of the Statutory Instrument for the special area of conservation. This notice will include a map of the site and other relevant information. My Department will also take out advertisements in newspapers alongside the notification letters. As this is not a new designation, landowners/users will be aware already of the protected status of the site.