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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 12 Feb 2008

Vol. 646 No. 4

Adjournment Debate.

Osteoporosis Services.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for affording me time to raise this important issue, namely, the need for the Minister for Health and Children to provide core funding for the continuation and expansion of osteoporosis services. These services are currently provided by the Irish Osteoporosis Society, IOS, which is a charitable organisation. It will be forced to close without such funding, leaving the public and health professionals without a point of contact that is invaluable in terms of accessing information on osteoporosis treatment and prevention.

The Irish Osteoporosis Society is the only organisation in the country dedicated to assisting those with osteoporosis. It runs a help line, distributes information leaflets, runs conferences for health care professionals and organises approximately 130 lectures a year for the general public. It raises awareness of osteoporosis through television, radio and poster advertising campaigns as it is an extremely debilitating disease with which many people are unfamiliar until they the are diagnosed as having it.

One in five men and one in three women — one in two women over 65 years of age — as well as many children are affected by osteoporosis. It is, however, preventable and treatable in the majority of people but early diagnosis and treatment are essential. Since the disease is silent, a dual energy X-ray absorptiometry, DXA, scan of the spine is the only recommended method of detection.

Osteoporosis is the most common bone disease affecting people throughout the world and its widespread occurrence led to the publication of EU regulations in 1998 that put the onus on member state governments to fund osteoporosis charities. This year the Government did just that but the importance of the continuation and extension of such funding cannot be emphasised too strongly. Not only does such investment benefit the suffers of this disease but it is an exercise in joined-up thinking as money spent on prevention and early intervention can save millions in hospital costs and reduce the occupancy of hospital beds. If more funds were available to the Irish Osteoporosis Society, the admittance of low trauma fractures to hospital accident and emergency departments would also be significantly reduced.

Currently the IOS operates with a staff of two to cover the entire country and this has led to their being forced to work a 72-hour week to keep up with the volume of demand. The society is finding it extremely difficult to attract new personnel as it is impossible to attract people with the right experience when there is no guarantee that the organisation will still be operating in a year's time.

I ask the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Hoctor, to make a commitment to funding this organisation as it performs a valuable role in the prevention and detection of a crippling disease that creeps up unheralded on so many unsuspecting people. Anything that can be done to prevent a disease that can, with hard work and funding, be prevented must be done. Essential funding will be the life blood of the Irish Osteoporosis Society and will allow its valuable work to prevent a disease that is increasing daily due to the stresses of modern life to continue. There may be a perception that this is a condition suffered only by the elderly but it knows no age barriers and we are all at risk.

I plead with the Minister of State to continue funding this important society as it provides a valuable service to the elderly and not so elderly in society. Many sufferers of osteoporosis have approached me recently with their concerns regarding the Government's low funding of the Irish Osteoporosis Society.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss this matter. I reaffirm the Government's commitment to services for older people and outline the context of this matter with regard to the Irish Osteoporosis Society.

Osteoporosis can affect men, women and children of all ages. Many cases of osteoporosis remain undetected until a fracture is sustained and it is difficult to give the exact incidence and prevalence rates of the disease in Ireland. However, osteoporosis is currently estimated to affect one in three women and one in five men over 50 years of age. Furthermore, loss of bone density, symptomatic of the potential to develop osteoporosis, occurs with advancing age. In addition, rates of fracture increase markedly with age, thus giving rise to significant morbidity and mortality.

The Department has supported the National Council on Ageing and Older People and the Health Service Executive in the establishment of a steering committee to oversee the development of a strategy to prevent falls and fractures in the ageing population. This committee is chaired by the HSE and it is understood that a sub-group has been established to examine the area of osteoporosis.

The IOS was established in 1996 with the overall aims of reducing the incidence of osteoporosis and promoting bone health. It provides information to the public and health professionals on all aspects of the disease and offers support to people with osteoporosis and those at risk from the disease.

The former Northern Area Health Board, and subsequently the HSE, met with the IOS in recent years to agree funding for various initiatives undertaken by the society. This resulted in grant aid of €100,000 in both 2004 and 2005 and €128,000 in 2006. A service level agreement was reached between the society and the HSE for 2007, which included the provision of €250,000 once-off funding towards certain objectives. These included the development of an osteoporosis and bone health lo-call telephone help line and information database and the launch of a new website by October 2007. Another objective was to support the earlier detection and prevention of osteoporosis in the wider community by educating and informing health care professionals, co-ordinating a range of awareness campaigns at national and local level and availing of opportunities to promote osteoporosis in other generic health materials.

In the wider context, the development of services for older people continues to be a priority for this Government. This is reflected, for example, in the funding committed to the sector in the budgets of 2006 and 2007 where over €400 million was provided for much needed initiatives across a range of services nationally. The recent budget provided an additional €135 million for next year, €110 million of which is in respect of A Fair Deal, the new nursing home support scheme, and €25 million for complementary community support services for older people and palliative care.

As the Deputy is aware the Health Act 2004 provides the HSE with responsibility for the management and delivery of health and personal social services. As a statutory body the provision of these services, including the delivery of services by agreement with voluntary and community organisations such as the Irish Osteoporosis Society, is a matter for the HSE. The Deputy will also appreciate that funding for health services has been provided as part of the HSE's overall Vote for health and personal social services this year. The allocation of resources is a matter for the HSE in accordance with the overall priorities for particular services, as set out in its service plan.

I am satisfied that the HSE recognises the valuable work undertaken by the Irish Osteoporosis Society and makes every effort to assist them in line with resources available. This is reflected in a practical way in the funding given to the IOS in recent years. The question of any revised funding arrangements would be a matter, in the first instance, for the HSE in the light of its overall competing demands and through any new agreement with the society on future service provision.

Grant Payments.

I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue and call on the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Mary Coughlan, to honour her contract with farmers on the rural environment protection scheme, REPS. The Minister must ensure that suspended REPS payments are made as soon as possible, clearly explain what is happening at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and what she is doing to remedy the matter. Farmers are clear that the contract they entered into with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food included the payment of REPS 2 and REPS 3 as an advanced payment.

The depth of feeling relating to this issue was demonstrated at the meeting at the offices of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in Limerick on Sunday. This meeting was in support of the sit-in protest by farmer Donal O'Brien who was on hunger and thirst strike because he was promised his payment and informed he would be receiving payment but at the end of last week was told he would not receive it. Mr. O'Brien was taken to hospital tonight as a result of his experience. We wish him a speedy recovery to health.

The pay freeze on the REPS payment follows hot on the heels of the suspension of the farm improvement scheme. The announcement that no advance payments will be made for REPS 4 leaves farmers in the lurch when they need to make vital capital investments. Thousands of farmers are being hit by the freeze in REPS payments. Many of these farmers will have taken out loans to invest in essential infrastructure on their farms. This creates a serious cash flow problem while they await the arrival of their funds.

The way in which the situation has been handled by the Minister and her Department has also left a lot to be desired, with farmers being left completely in the dark. The Minister must put in a strong argument for a solution to this problem but she must also inform farmers as to what is happening and when they can expect the release of REPS 2 and REPS 3 payments.

The Minister states that the problem lies with the EU. However I believe it is within the control of the Department of Finance, which is limiting the amount of payments. The Minister needs to clarify this situation as a matter of urgency and needs to make a more concerted effort to communicate in an open manner with farmers, to reassure them in light of the forthcoming CAP health check and to quell uncertainty in the sector.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise this important matter and to join my colleagues on the opposite side of the House who have also seen fit to raise this matter on the Adjournment. This is a difficult issue for many farmers in County Limerick who are members of REPS and for the 50,000 farmers throughout the country who have joined the scheme in goodwill.

As chairman of the Fianna Fáil policy group on the environment, I am very aware of the excellent benefits this scheme can bring to our environment and what it has achieved since its inception in the early 1990s. Under the scheme farmers do their bit for the environment and in return are given their payment.

This has always been a front-loaded scheme with an advance payment and this is what farmers signed up to. They go to their REPS planner, put their plan in place, pay him and then expend some money on the work in the farm. They were given payment in advance and this method worked very well. Ireland is the only country in Europe to have had the benefit of an advanced front-loaded REPS. It is widely recognised we have the best REPS in Europe. In the best of good faith, farmers signed the contract for REPS 2 and REPS 3 with the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food acting for the EU. It is only fair and proper that this commitment should be honoured.

The Minister is currently in a very difficult situation. We are very fortunate to have a Minister who is the best Minister for Agriculture that ever represented this country.

What about Austin Deasy and Mark Clinton?

She has tremendous influence in Europe. She has worked very hard for the past number of days and nights and has been in constant contact with Commissioner Fischer Boel and with the Commission. I am quite confident that the Minister will bring a satisfactory conclusion if given a little space.

I do not agree that the Minister or the Department of Finance have caused the problem. The scheme is a European scheme and we must respect its terms and conditions. It was introduced as an advance payment scheme and it is time this was recognised. I have no difficulty with REPS 4. If we are to have a scheme that is not an advance payment scheme, people will be aware of this fact when they join. REPS 2 and REPS 3 were advance payment schemes. I commend the Minister on her efforts and encourage her to bring a solution to the problem.

I also wish Donal O'Brien well. He is in hospital as he has been on hunger strike on the issue in County Limerick.

(Interruptions).

Allow speakers to continue without interruption.

I know that when Deputy O'Connor is Acting Chairman I will be given the time I require.

I will do my best.

I wish to clarify some points. It is not just REPS participants whose scheme anniversary falls on 1 January that are affected. I know this because I sought clarification about my own REPS plan, the anniversary date of which was 1 November. I sent in my full compliance on 3 December and I am informed it was not processed because of a backlog of work, due in part to an official being on long-term sick leave who was not replaced. Mairead McGuinness, MEP, seems to have had early indications that the EU did not direct that suspension of payments for REPS 2 and REPS 3 should take place. I accept that REPS 4 is a different matter. I ask for clarification on this issue.

I raised this matter under Standing Order 32 this morning. I pointed out that the Lisbon treaty seeks the reaffirmation of the power of our own Parliament and our own national Government policy. It has been the policy of the Government to front-load the payments in order to allow people to invest. If it is the case that the EU has insisted on a change in this rule, it will be difficult to sell this concept of autonomy for Irish Government policy in the run-up to the referendum on the Lisbon treaty.

REPS has been a flagship EU environmental scheme. Farmers have come to regard it as a means of investing in an upgrade of their waste facilities to bring their farm practice into line with EU standards and there have been tangible results. However, this has come at a cost which has involved borrowing to provide buildings, waste storage facilities, new habitat zones, destocking, hedgerows and other aspects of REPS. The annual REPS payment has been regarded as a method of funding and servicing this commitment and this is now in jeopardy. Many people regard cash flow as the issue. In light of the suggestion that all EU schemes are to be based on environmental aspects, it is a question of whether the budget is running out.

It is a very drastic measure for a man to go on hunger and thirst strike in order to obtain his rights and entitlements. At 7 a.m. this morning I was in Limerick city outside the office of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food where Donal O'Brien, a farmer, was on a hunger and thirst strike. I am pleased to say he has ended his thirst strike, which is a great relief to many people who support everything for which this man stands.

Previous speakers have made many of the relevant points. A total of 6,000 farmers are affected by this stand-off between Europe and the Department. The spin we are being given is that the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, is negotiating with the EU Commissioner to try to have the payments made. The implication of the spin is that they have changed the regulation but this is not the case. As Deputy Doyle said, Mairead McGuinness, MEP, outlined in the newspaper today that this is entirely a matter for the Department and there is no change in the regulation. The regulation is different for REPS 4, but not for REPS 2 and REPS 3.

The Government is hiding behind an inaccuracy. The benefits of REPS 2 and REPS 3 are to be seen in what they have achieved for the environment and for the weaker sector in the agricultural community. The schemes have been a means of helping people to stay on the land and invest in it. It should be remembered that farming is seasonal and farmers depend on payments being made consistently at the agreed time. Farmers budget around those payments. A total of 6,000 farmers are currently affected and this will grow over the next weeks or months. Many more people will be affected by the stand-off in the same way as Donal O'Brien and the 6,000 farmers. I urge the Minister of State to prompt the Department to release the funding immediately. If this matter is not addressed promptly, more difficulties will be created and it will escalate. I fear for people as many of those involved in the agricultural sector on this island are in a desperate situation. The Minister and the Minister of State are from rural constituencies and have the same sense of this as all of us.

I ask the Deputy to conclude as the time has expired.

The Acting Chairman is also from rural Ireland as he is from Tallaght.

Will the Acting Chairman allow me to say one word?

The order of the day——

The Acting Chairman is not the Ceann Comhairle, Deputy O'Donoghue. Let him off.

The Minister of State will concede half a minute.

I join other Members in urging the Minister of State to take immediate steps to rectify this injustice to the 6,000 farmers who are trapped.

Does the Minister of State want to have them working in vineyards and giving them nothing, while their counterparts in the REPS 4 scheme will be paid in a fortnight's time? I ask the Minister of State to have compassion for the 6,000 farmers waiting for funding to pay their bills.

I must bring Deputy Sheehan to Tallaght to visit my farmers.

Does the Acting Chairman have a big farm in Tallaght?

I hope Deputy Sheehan appreciates that I gave him a minute or two of my time.. I thank Deputies Neville, Cregan, Doyle and Ferris for raising this issue.

And Deputy Sheehan.

I apologise — and Deputy Sheehan. I join them in wishing Mr. O'Brien a speedy recovery to full health.

Like Deputies on all sides of the House, I regard REPS as one of the most successful farming schemes we have ever operated. Since its introduction in 1994, it has delivered more than €2 billion in payments to farmers. However, it is about much more than money. It is a scheme which has brought many benefits to the environment and to society as a whole. It enables farmers to remain viable while farming in ways compatible with protecting and improving the environment, safeguarding biodiversity and contributing to better water quality. The importance of REPS is given the strongest recognition in the programme for Government, with the commitment to further promote the benefits of the scheme and achieve a participation rate of 70,000 farmers.

For generations, farmers and farm families have been the keepers of Ireland's rural landscape and rural environment. Modern farmers are extremely conscious of their responsibility for this heritage and they want to maintain it and pass it on to future generations. REPS helps them to do this. The payments may be made directly to farmers, but the benefits are for everyone.

We are now into REPS 4. When the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Coughlan, launched the new scheme last August she pointed to the fact that €3 billion had been provided for it over the period of the new rural development programme, which runs to 2013. The Government's commitment to REPS is demonstrated by the fact that this includes €1.6 billion of national funds, almost double the national provision in the seven years to 2006.

On this point, I want to take this opportunity to state clearly that no issue arises with regard to the availability of funds for REPS this year. My Department's Vote contains money to meet all commitments arising under REPS, and the first payments will go out this week to REPS 4 farmers under contracts which commenced in 2007. In line with the social partnership agreement, Towards 2016, all payment rates in REPS 4 are increased by 17% compared to REPS 3. This means that the average REPS farmer will receive €7,220 per year in REPS 4, while a farmer with 55 hectares will qualify for more than €10,000.

REPS 4 will help to protect the rural landscape, increase biodiversity and improve water quality. It will encourage farmers to enhance the environment through a range of actions. These include a reduction in the use of fertilisers and pesticides, which will contribute to lower greenhouse gas emissions as well as improved water quality. The scheme also helps to maintain existing hedgerows and promotes the planting of new ones. Some REPS farmers will grow crops to provide food for wild birds. Others will preserve traditional breeds of animals.

When REPS 3, the previous version of the scheme, closed to new entrants in December 2006 more than 59,000 farmers were taking part. We expect these numbers to grow under REPS 4. I am particularly glad to be able to state that, as we have a derogation for more intensive farmers under the nitrates regulations, they are eligible to apply for REPS for the first time.

Since REPS was first introduced in 1994, it has been our practice to pay the farmer at the start of each year of the five-year contract.

Who was in Government in 1994?

This was in recognition of the reality that farmers may have to make capital investments and spend money throughout their contracts to bring their farms up to REPS standards. It is a system which proved attractive to farmers and worked well.

REPS 4 operates under different EU regulations from previous versions of the scheme. If applied to the letter, these would mean a departure from the existing practice of paying the farmer at the start of each contract year. My officials explained this situation to the farming organisations and, with their encouragement, looked for the Commission's agreement to continue the existing system.

It was at this point, early in January, that the Commission — out of the blue — suggested we had been wrong all along to pay at the start of the REPS contract year. We were astounded by this, because the Commission had been fully aware of the way we operated. It had been commented on during successive visits by auditors from the Commission and the Court of Auditors. Never before had anyone suggested that we should not be doing this.

At that stage in January, we had already paid more than €6 million to farmers in REPS. Once we knew the Commission was taking this line, we had to put further payments on hold while we set about trying to persuade it to take a different view. This decision was taken extremely reluctantly and there is no question of the Department taking a decision unilaterally. We were aware it would come as bad news to farmers who were expecting their payments. However, when schemes are operated in ways not in line with EU regulations the Commission can, and does, impose disallowances. Ultimately, the taxpayer has to foot the bill. This was a risk we could not take.

Department officials have met the Commission twice in recent weeks about this situation. They argued strongly that the practice of paying at the start of the contract year is well established and one of which the Commission is well aware. When Commissioner Fischer Boel was in Dublin two weeks ago to attend the annual general meeting of the IFA, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Coughlan, took the opportunity to make the same points strongly and directly to her. The Minister emphasised the seriousness with which she regards the situation. The Minister and her officials continue to press for a quick and pragmatic resolution to the issue and high-level contacts continue on a daily basis.

We do not welcome this situation. We are making it clear to the Commissioner and her officials that there is a real risk of damaging farmers' confidence in what we can describe without contradiction as the most successful agri-environmental measure in all of Europe. I appreciate that farmers are suffering by being caught up in this uncertainty but I can assure all concerned that the Minister and her officials are pressing the Commission for a quick resolution so that prompt payments can continue to be made as before.

Environmental Policy.

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Hoctor, and I am glad the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Browne, is still in the House. I am sorry the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, is not here to respond personally to what I regard as one of the most important issues I have raised on behalf of my constituency since I became a Member of this House 21 years ago.

On 13 December 2007, the European Court of Justice gave a judgment in a case taken by the Commission against Ireland under the birds directive. Among the findings in this judgment, which I read, was that we have an inadequate number and size of areas classified as special protection areas, contrary to Articles 4.1 and 4.2 of the birds directive. I read not only the legal judgment but the recitals of all the ongoing dialogue and the legal exchanges between Ireland and the European Commission since 1998.

In a panicked response to this judgment, the Government has begun a process of designating new areas. Last week, I spoke to the assistant director of the national parks and wildlife service. He told me areas such as Dublin Bay, Galway Bay and Cork Harbour are being examined. I wish the Government had started there because when the extent of what is proposed is seen it will cause such an outcry that it must be changed. The proposed designation of Wexford Harbour up to Enniscorthy, the home town of the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, is quite scandalous, taking in a huge swathe of south County Wexford.

No one has any difficulty with protecting bird species; we are all at one on the need to do this. The extent, however, of the designation laid out in the proposals under the directive will be to ruin Wexford. In the words of a senior public official in Wexford yesterday, it is the erection of an economic barrier around the town.

I will remind the Minister of State the activities that will require ministerial consent under this proposal. Among them is the harvesting of marine species, unless for personal use and not exceeding certain limits. This is in one of the most productive harvesting harbours in Ireland with a multi-million euro industry in mussel fisheries. Another activity is the construction or alteration of tracks, paths, roads, embankments, car parks or access routes. Among the areas designated as a bird sanctuary is the park-and-ride car park for Wexford town. Any activity that develops, operates or allows leisure or sporting facilities that might cause disturbance to the birds requires ministerial consent. Wexford Harbour is a leisure harbour attracting thousands of visitors. Any activity which destroys habitats means any building on the lands contiguous to Wexford will be banned. That also includes reclamation, infilling and dredging with the final, catch-all comment, "any other activity".

This proposal is wholly unacceptable and illogical and must be changed. As I speak, a public meeting in Wexford with 600 people attending is under way. That will be the thin end of the wedge of public reaction. This proposal puts in immediate jeopardy multi-million euro projects, including the expansion of the Wexford main drainage scheme to give a 45,000 population equivalent.

The Labour Party and others want the Lisbon treaty voted through in several months. However, this sort of cack-handed implementation of EU policy will destroy public confidence in the EU and public support for the Lisbon reform treaty. This must be addressed immediately. Otherwise, there will be a public outcry of resistance in Wexford to the economic sabotage to the future of our town.

I hope the Minister of State will bring to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government my strong feelings and those of the thousands in my county agitated by this proposal. I expect a speedy, sympathetic, realistic and logical response.

I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley.

EU member states are required under the birds directive to protect birds at their breeding, feeding, roosting and wintering areas. The directive was transposed by the European Communities (Natural Habitats) Regulations 1997, as amended in 1998 and 2005. These regulations enable the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to designate the most important conservation areas as special protection areas, SPAs, and to afford them legal protection.

The Department engaged in a nationwide roll-out of SPAs. The exercise included redesignation of SPA sites, some of which, like Wexford Harbour, were first designated ten years ago. This work is particularly required as part of Ireland's response to litigation being pursued by the European Commission under the birds directive. An adverse judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice against Ireland in December 2007 means we must press ahead with this programme.

On 16 December 2007, as part of the programme, the Department proposed three sites in County Wexford for designation as SPAs for wild birds — Lady's Island Lake, Ballyteigue Burrow and Wexford Harbour and Slobs. Details of the proposals to designate these sites were published in the regional press and local radio. While these are not new designations, the boundaries have been extended in some areas. Landowners and others identified by the Department's national parks and wildlife service, NPWS, as having land or holding rights or licences in SPAs were notified directly in writing. They were provided with a site map and description, list of activities that might damage the site, procedures for objecting to the designation proposal and details of compensation provisions. Objections on scientific grounds to these proposals may be submitted within three months from the date of their publication.

Wexford Harbour and Slobs SPA consists of the natural estuarine habitats of Wexford Harbour, the reclaimed polders known as the north and south Slobs and the tidal river component of the Slaney.

That goes right up to Enniscorthy.

The seaward boundary extends from the Rosslare peninsula in the south to an area just west of Raven Point in the north. The SPA stretches upriver as far as Enniscorthy. Contrary to some allegations, the urban area of Wexford is not included in the area proposed for designation.

Wexford Harbour and Slobs is one of the top three sites in diversity of wintering birds and regularly supports well in excess of 20,000 water birds. The combination of estuarine habitats, include shallow waters for grebes, diving duck and seaduck, and the farmland of the polders, which include freshwater drainage channels, provides optimum feeding and roost areas for a wide range of species. It is one of the two most important sites in the world for the Greenland white-fronted goose.

To protect ecologically important sites, certain potentially harmful works are restricted within SPAs. These works, notifiable actions or operations requiring consent, are liable to destroy or significantly to alter, damage or interfere with the ecology of the site. They vary depending on the type of habitat present.

A landowner or land-user contemplating works that might harm a designated habitat is required to seek the consent of the Minister. In practice, the local NPWS conservation ranger will be able to provide advice to a landowner on what may or may not require consent.

Where stands the main drainage scheme?

Operations which require consent would include, for example, altering watercourses or wetlands, burning areas of vegetation, harvesting marine species, construction or alteration of tracks, paths, roads, embankments, car parks or access routes, dumping, burning or disposal of any materials, reclaiming land for agricultural purposes, planting of trees, reclamation or infilling, removal of soil, mud, sand, gravel, rock or minerals, etc.

The fair application of these protective measures would not have any serious economic consequence for the people of Wexford town. It is not envisaged that there would be a need to interfere with current levels of recreational use of the site.

The Government is committed to the payment of a fair and proper level of compensation to landowners and land-users who are at a financial loss as a result of the designation of a SPA. Lands within a SPA or a commonage constitute target areas under measure A, conservation of natural heritage of REPS, as operated by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Under that scheme generous top-up payments are available to those who have land in designated area.

Separate from REPS, the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government runs a farm plan scheme which allows a landowner to seek compensation for actual losses or costs incurred due to restrictions placed on existing activities solely as a result of the inclusion of an area in a special protected area.

Any proposed large-scale development in the area would go through normal planning processes and be subject to appropriate assessment from an environmental perspective. However, the footprint of this SPA designation is on the water surface. Consequently, I do not envisage such development issues as being particularly problematic in this context.

I will show the Minister of State the map.

The Dáil adjourned at 9.10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 February 2008.
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