Vol. 508 No. 5
12 Mr. Stagg asked the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands if her attention has been drawn to the serious concerns expressed at a meeting of more than 50 scientists in Clare last month on the adequacy of Ireland's special areas of conservation; the proposals, if any, she intends to bring forward arising from the report; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19134/99]
The meeting referred to by the Deputy was the Atlantic Region Biogeographic Seminar held at Kilkee in early September. I am aware of the comments and I hosted a dinner for the participants. The outcome of the meeting was not unexpected as my Department has yet to transmit a full list of Irish sites to the EU Commission.
The position is that to date I have transmitted a total of 145 SAC sites to the European Commission and I will be transmitting more when a number of appeals against further designations are resolved. My experts who attended the meeting freely conceded that more sites need to be transmitted and this will be done. I reject any suggestion that serious concerns were raised. It would be more correct to say that I and my Department brought the matter to the attention of the EU last March and set out a programme of work to ensure that our obligations are met. I was joined in this, obviously, by the Minister of State.
The Commission and I believe that the successful establishment of the Natura 2000 Network is dependent on the active co-operation of landowners and land users. I, therefore, do not propose to transmit a site to the Commission until the appeals outstanding on it are completed.
Will the Minister assure the House thee is no prospect of the European Commission taking the Government or her Department to the European Court of Justice and what has the Commission indicated to her in that regard? Will she categorically assure us that the non-compliance with the habitats directive, 1992 will not have adverse effects in terms of applications for Cohesion and Structural Funds?
The Commission has made its views known on this. It would like to see a full list and we explained to it that was the reason the Minister of State, my officials and I went to Brussels. We were most concerned that NATURA 2000 would be successfully established and the way to implement that was through co-operation with landowners and land users. We put forward a programme, which we discussed at that meeting and the Commission is aware of our priorities in that regard. It is also aware that we are doing our best to ensure that we bring about a situation where all the sites can be listed with it. When the next Atlantic Regional Biographic Seminar is held in 2000 I expect the Irish list will be sufficient to meet the obligations under the directive.
An nglacann an tAire leis go bhfuil an liosta SAC an-déanach ó thaobh na hEorpa de? An mbeidh sí sásta cur leis an liosta trí roinnt SAC san fharraige a ainmniú, ar nós Beal na Sionainne, mar a bhfuil deilfeanna agus eile. Tá roinnt daoine buartha faoi sin agus ag rá liomsa gur chóir roinnt SAC mara a chur ar fáil, ó tharla gur oileán sinn.
In August I arranged for the public advertisement of a further 128 proposed candidate SACs and later in the year an additional 40 or so marine sites will be published. It is my intention that the bulk of the non-marine sites will be formally transmitted to the Commission at the end of the year. That is the position with regard to the overall sites and the marine sites to which the Deputy referred.
Will the Minister agree that a good deal of uncertainty has been created among farmers who have lands in SACs? The reason they are objecting now is that they do not understand fully what is involved. Additional infor mation was given to the farmers who are objecting, but what additional work has been done in this area? When the Minister was in Opposition she cast doubts every day on whether SACs should be established and her Minister of State whipped up hysteria in Connemara with the result that even today some farmers doubt whether SACs are of any value to them.
I have been given credit for something.
For being an expert on destruction.
On the question of the SACs and whether farmers are happy with the situation, we must recognise this is a European directive and we are, therefore, in a position to comply with it.
So democracy has gone out the window.
This is a European directive. The Deputy was Minister of State at this Department before I came into the office and he did not have any further views on the matter.
The Minister was very fond of democracy when she was on this side of the House.
With regard to the SACs and the compensation package that will be put into effect from my own Department, the Deputy's question referred to County Clare. I am sure he would be interested to note, and he should already be aware, that, through discussions in my Department, we have taken the opportunity to decide on two farms where we will have the opportunity to see how the programme would work if a farmer were to go under the REPs scheme and if a farmer were to benefit under the Department's scheme. This will help to make clearer, in a practical way, the kind of compensation proposals that will be put in place for farmers, and this was done with this issue in mind.
