No apologies have been received today.

The first item on our clár is an engagement with witnesses on funding for LIFE programmes. We also dealt with this issue last week. At the end of last year, the joint committee agreed to carry out further scrutiny on EU legislative proposal COM (2025) 555. This omnibus proposal encompasses a wide range of policy areas, including the EU LIFE programme, the fund for the environment, sustainability and green transition. As it stands, the proposal will lead to the cessation of the EU's only ring-fenced fund for climate and environmental action. This is the second of two meetings on this topic by this committee. Last week we met officials from the Department and the NPWS. This afternoon's engagement is to have an engagement with LIFE programme project partners. I welcome the following witnesses here today: from Corncrake LIFE programme Dr. John Carey, project manager; from Wild Atlantic Nature LIFE Dr. Derek McLoughlin, project manager; from Breeding Waders EIP, Mr. Owen Murphy, senior project manager, and Ms Karen Nugent, communications manager; and from the Lough Carra LIFE project, Ms Ann Marie Meaney, surface-water scientist and Ms Nicola Byrne, project manager. They are all very welcome.

I would like to remind all members and those in attendance to ensure their phones are on silent mode or switched off.

Before I invite opening statements, I wish to advise witnesses and members of the following in relation to parliamentary privilege. Witnesses and members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.

In regard to the format of this meeting, I will invite witnesses in turn to make an opening statement for a maximum of five minutes. Once they have been delivered, I will then call on members of the committee, in the order they indicate to me, to put their questions. We operate a rota system, which provides everybody with an initial five minutes. As those five minutes are for both questions and answers, it is essential for members to put their questions succinctly and for witnesses to be succinct in their responses. When all members who indicate have had their initial engagement and if time allows, we will have a second round for members with three minutes for both questions and answers. Please note the duration of the meeting is limited and, therefore, times must be strictly adhered to so I ask everybody to please be focused on their contributions.

I now call on each organisation to deliver its opening statement as follows: Dr. John Carey for Corncrake LIFE, Dr. Derek McLoughlin for Wild Atlantic Nature, Mr. Owen Murphy for Breeding Waders and Ms Ann Marie Meaney from Lough Carra LIFE. We will start Dr. John Carey, please.

Caidé mar atá sibh? First, I thank the Cathaoirleach, and members of the committee for inviting the Corncrake-Traonach LIFE project to contribute to the discussion on LIFE programme funding.

The Corncrake LIFE project is a five-year LIFE project that began in 2021 with a budget of €5.9 million, of which 73% is funded through the EU LIFE programme. It is co-ordinated by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, in co-operation with four other project partners: the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Fota Wildlife Park, Atlantic Technological University and Údarás na Gaeltachta.

In regard to the scale of the challenge, the project's overarching brief was to improve the conservation status of one of Ireland’s rarest and most iconic bird species, the corncrake. Corncrake is an annex species under the EU birds directives. In Ireland we have lost 90% of the birds in the past 40 years. Efforts to increase the population had limited impact and, in 2019, the NPWS successfully obtained EU LIFE programme funding for a dedicated corncrake project.

When the project started five years ago, we had 161 territories remaining in Ireland. These last birds were confined to the north and west coasts of Donegal, Mayo and Galway, where geographic or climatic constraints maintained low-intensity farming practices. However, corncrake conservation is complex and has to contend with modern agricultural and farming techniques that are often incompatible with the ecological requirements of the birds.

In regard to project implementation, stakeholder engagement was key to the success of Corncrake LIFE. A locally embedded team, well-resourced and willing and receptive to stakeholder inputs, allowed for meaningful dialogue and engagement. Corncrake LIFE staff became part of the landscape, working year round to plan and deliver with their participants who ranged from farmers and landowners to school pupils and community groups. The project facilitated additional funding resources from NPWS and the Department of agriculture, identifying needs and maximising its output. By having this strategic approach and being locally led, the project developed excellent synergy with all of its stakeholders.

On the project achievements, Corncrake LIFE designed and implemented a successful results-based agrienvironmental programme for farmers, which had over 250 participants managing over 1,500 ha of land per year. The project initiated habitat management works on offshore islands including crop growing, grassland restoration and conservation grazing with cattle. We ran a joint predator control programme with the LIFE on Machair project to ensure success for ground-nesting birds of many species.

At its zenith, Corncrake LIFE employed 14 staff across Donegal, Mayo and Galway and was spending approximately €650,000 annually on conservation actions within local economies. In its five years, the project increased the national corncrake population by 50%, with 281 territories confirmed in 2025, the highest number since a formal census began. The work and actions created by the project have been subsumed into the agri-climate rural environment scheme, ACRES, co-operation model, which includes 212 farmers and 658 ha eligible for specific corncrake actions.

The success of the project has catapulted Ireland to the fore in terms of bird species conservation models on farmland. To ensure continuity, the National Parks and Wildlife Service is now seeking a tender to operate a Natura communities for birds pilot initiative, cofunded by the Department of agriculture, which will utilise corncrakes as a flagship species for the protection of birds across the special protection area, SPA, network and beyond. This Natura communities model, developed by another LIFE-integrated project, Wild Atlantic Nature, will demonstrate once again Ireland’s initiative and ability to restore nature through co-operation and synergy with farmers and local communities.

In conclusion, EU LIFE projects have been a key player in the identification of solutions, the building of capacity and the delivery of action for nature, landowners and Government. For corncrakes, EU LIFE funding allowed for the tools to bring the corncrake back from the brink of extinction, and it has become a symbol of rejuvenation and co-operation in the rural landscape where it remains.

I thank the Cathaoirleach and members of the committee for inviting us to appear before them today.

Wild Atlantic Nature LIFE-integrated project is a €20.6 million project running from 2021 through 2029, led by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and cofinanced by the EU LIFE programme. The project aims to improve Ireland's performance in conserving legally protected habitats, with a focus on over 250,000 ha of special areas of conservation designated for blanket bog, a priority habitat under the EU habitats directive. As an integrated project, it also has a remit to leverage additional funding pertaining to the management of Ireland’s Natura 2000 network.

Although the primary objectives of the project relate to requirements under the EU birds and habitats directives, the project also provides significant input in broader policy and planning including Ireland’s Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, strategic plan, our national biodiversity action plan, the water framework directive and climate objectives. This work is led by a multidisciplinary team and supported by input from ten beneficiaries, including: the National Parks and Wildlife Service - ourselves - as a co-ordinating beneficiary, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Bord na Móna, Coillte, RTÉ, Teagasc, Fáilte Ireland, the Heritage Council, the Northern and Western Regional Assembly and the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain.

EU LIFE funding has been hugely beneficial because it has enabled us to design and deliver a range of successful activities pertaining to improving the status of blanket bogs and assist Ireland in meeting its various policy targets. To give a sense of how such an integrated LIFE project functions, I will give a number of sample achievements from the first half of the project. Since our project commenced in early 2021, we have facilitated the restoration of over 2,000 ha of blanket bog, with a process now in place to greatly increase this rate of restoration. In addition to the employment of the project team and associated beneficiary staff, the project has created over 40 full-time jobs in rural areas in Galway, Mayo and Donegal in the implementation of peatland restoration, including invasives control under the Natura communities programme. This approach will be further expanded to counties Kerry, Sligo and Leitrim in 2026, creating further employment.

The project has designed and delivered a school education programme to over 1,700 schoolchildren. We have paid more than €3 million to over 820 farmers in a pilot results-based scheme that provided the stepping stones into the national ACRES co-operation project in Ireland’s CAP strategic plan. We have trained over 1,200 farmers and other stakeholders on blanket bog ecology and restoration. We have commenced a 20-home energy retrofit pilot worth over €1 million. The objective of this pilot is to reduce the demand for turf-cutting in our Natura 2000 sites. This pilot provides a template that can be scaled out nationally to provide a solution that meets climate and nature objectives in areas where national programmes often have a low uptake.

In the remit of attracting complementary funding, we have facilitated and managed the delivery of over €35 million in additional funding to further deliver capacity building and peatland restoration across the island of Ireland, as well as facilitating strong knowledge exchange with the UK and EU.

In 2024, LIFE IP Wild Atlantic Nature was the first Irish recipient of an EU Natura 2000 Award for our work in agri-environment policy and practice. Our work has been cited as an exemplar within the European Commission and OECD and we have presented it at the invitation of numerous EU member states.

Many of the key successes of the LIFE programme have resulted from our experience working with farmers in the project areas. The skills and expertise of farmers, which have been honed over generations, are crucial in achieving restoration and protection of nature and in securing a future for our rural communities. EU LIFE funding and support has provided the platform to enable us to integrate the complex threads of nature, climate, water, land use and people together and to deliver better outcomes for society and the environment, particularly in rural areas. This work helps Ireland to meet its national and international obligations in relation to climate and environmental policy. Go raibh maith agaibh. I look forward to any questions.

On behalf of Breeding Waders EIP, I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to present to them. A copy of our briefing document was submitted to the committee on 23 January 2026.

Launched in May 2024, the €25 million Breeding Waders EIP is tasked with the delivery of a suite of measures that, in combination, are aiming to halt the extirpation of a number of Ireland’s most iconic wild bird species. The operational group involved in this delivery is formed by a collective of project partners, all bringing expertise and knowledge to the fray, helping to ensure these birds are given a last chance at remaining part of the Irish countryside. The competitive call, issued by the Department of housing and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, sought applications for design and delivery of this conservation project and listed a broad and extensive range of pressures that have led to a catastrophic decline in the breeding populations of these species. The species to which I am referring include the magical curlew; the lapwing, our national bird; and an feadóg bhuí or the golden plover, along with seven others. That is ten species in all, some of which have declined by a staggering 98% since the mid-1980s.

My opening statement, backed up by the briefing document containing the relevant facts, figures and stats of the EIP thus far, will be of a more personal nature than some, so I hope members will indulge me in this regard. I feel it is important to advocate for the human side of nature conservation and the need for well-resourced projects into the future. I am here as someone who feels a strong connection to Ireland. I have always had a deep sense of belonging, especially to my home parish in south Roscommon. Over the years, I have often reflected on what shapes patriotism and our idea of nationhood, and where our sense of attachment to this country comes from. Time and again, I return to the feeling that familiarity with our people, places and history is significant but so too is our connection to the land, the sea, the wetlands, the flora and fauna. Indeed, the flora and fauna have formed part of our stories, folklore, songs and poems. Our artists have drawn them, our great epics describe them and, importantly, Irish citizens have stated repeatedly that they care about them.

One historic example is from Clonmacnoise, the internationally renowned monastic centre of learning. On a high cross overlooking the mighty Shannon Callows there is a carved panel depicting Christ, the most venerated individual in monastic culture, being resuscitated in the tomb by a long-legged and long-billed bird, presumably a curlew, possibly an Irish version of the sacred ibis. This unique artwork shows the extent to which the natural world has been respected throughout our history.

A question for the Deputies and Senators who were kind enough to invite me here today is how many native species could be lost from this island before Ireland has changed or morphed into a place we no longer recognise. Irrespective of the answer, we will need well-resourced, long-term projects and programmes that deliver for nature and, crucially, for rural economies and family farm incomes. Because of the volatile nature of politics, enhanced by the current geopolitical atmosphere, ring-fencing budgets for nature is the only way we can be guaranteed that our most vulnerable and iconic species and habitats will remain for future generations of Irishwomen and men to cherish.

EIP agri-projects have been with us since 2012 and have spearheaded innovation and output in many areas, including the environmental and biodiversity sectors. At the Breeding Waders EIP, our motto is "collaborative conservation" and that is what LIFE projects and EIPs develop. They harmonise effort, build foundations and embed the importance of nature conservation in local communities. The Breeding Waders EIP was fortunate enough to be able to build on wonderful connections and relationships of trust developed with local communities by LIFE projects such as our friends in Corncrake LIFE, Wild Atlantic Nature and LIFE on Machair.

Many rural communities now see farm incomes, staff incomes, contractor incomes and hospitality incomes from biodiversity-related projects. This needs to be strengthened, creating enhanced certainty around these crucial funding streams. Long-term projects that support local communities and farm families will deliver for nature and climate. Certainty is what is required, lest we undo all the positive work, uproot the relationships and dislodge biodiversity projects from the heart of rural areas. It is my belief, and that of my colleagues, that ring-fenced budgets are the only way in which these objectives can be guaranteed.

We are all aware that biodiversity is still under enormous threat in Ireland. This does not indicate that current and past efforts have not worked; it indicates the timeframes, scale and ambition of these programmes need to be enhanced. Learnings, innovations and biodiversity-related gains made in habitat and species conservation as part of short-term EIPs and LIFE projects need to be mainstreamed in a proactive way. Downtime between a project finishing and follow-on work commencing, if continuation is necessary, leaves landowners and farmers questioning the commitment of Government to their contributions.

Timeframes are perhaps the most challenging aspect of species conservation for policymakers. Programmes of work of indefinite duration seem problematic for politicians and HR departments. However, the reality is that, unlike restoration of historic buildings, which see the snag lists complete and the restoration finished, species conservation in Ireland’s modern and often degraded landscape is a long-term commitment. Continuity is key, downtime is detrimental and collaborative commitment, with resourcing from the State or EU matching the dedication of project teams and landowners, is critical.

On Tuesday, 20 January, the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee published a report with a grave warning: ecosystems could collapse within five years, posing an immediate threat to national security, prosperity and public health. It warns about the breakdown of the biological systems that support food, water, medicine and economic stability. If nature fails, we face crop and fisheries collapse, water shortages and new disease outbreaks, all of which drive up economic costs. In Ireland, restoring our bogs, wetlands and the life that depends on them is not optional, sentimental or a luxury. It is a front-line investment in our national resilience, security and survival.

Even if curlew and golden plover are not your priority, the economic threats posed by ecosystem failures are significant and require immediate and urgent attention. As the intelligence chiefs say in the report, “Nature is a foundation of national security.” Investment in nature conservation is an investment in our economic and national security. A healthy and thriving natural environment is the cheapest and most effective way to protect livelihoods, economic resilience and our collective future. Ring-fencing of budgets to allow project teams to continue their innovation, public engagement and delivery of actions, with all the associated benefits, is surely a shrewd investment in Ireland’s future.

On behalf of the Lough Carra LIFE project, I thank the committee for inviting me here to contribute to the discussion on funding for LIFE programmes. I have worked on the Lough Carra LIFE project for over two years.

Lough Carra in County Mayo is one of the most ecologically important marl lakes in Ireland and western Europe, characterised by extensive marl deposits and a suite of low-nutrient habitats that have developed over thousands of years. In recent decades, scientists, anglers and members of the local community have witnessed the deterioration of this unique lake and its habitats, a trend that aligns with welldocumented agricultural intensification and nutrient enrichment in the catchment since the 1970s. These pressures have led to the collapse of the mayfly population, a nutrientsensitive aquatic invertebrate fundamental to the productivity of the trout fishery. Consequently, trout catch per unit effort has fallen by approximately 75%. This decline signifies both a profound ecological failure and the collapse of a oncethriving tourism sector that drew anglers from throughout Europe.

Because Lough Carra drains into Lough Mask and onward to Lough Corrib, pollution pressures originating in a single lake are transferred downstream, where their combined effects may be even more significant. Lough Mask provides drinking water for roughly 42,000 people in Mayo, Galway and Roscommon, while Lough Corrib supplies drinking water to more than 80,000 people.

In 2018, the local community drew a line in the sand and formed the Lough Carra Catchment Association to advocate for the importance of our lake and find ways to reverse its decline. From this, a five-year LIFE project with a budget of €5 million was awarded, led by qualified experts, to find community-based solutions to this biodiversity crisis.

The project brings together the expertise of Mayo County Council, in partnership with the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, Geological Survey Ireland, GSI, Coillte, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, and the Lough Carra Catchment Association, with support and assistance from a number of other organisations, including Teagasc, LAWPRO, Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, the Office of Public Works, OPW, Vincent Wildlife Trust, Joyce Country and the Western Lakes Geopark, and the National Federation of Group Water Schemes. This collaborative approach underscores how a LIFE project brings together Ireland's specialties into a project that is science-based, community-led and locally embedded.

Almost €1.9 million of the budget is being invested directly into the rural economy through a pilot results-based agricultural-environmental scheme focused on reducing nutrient losses to surface and groundwater. Average yearly payments to participating farmers are approximately €4,700 to date. These farmers are predominantly part-time, farming land of high nature value. This scheme means that the farmer is not solely reliant on food production for a means of income but can now leverage the supply of environmental services to the community for economic gain. The tangible outcomes of this agri-environmental scheme include approximately 22 km of new or upgraded fencing, 71 ha of riparian buffer zone directly reducing nutrient input, 835 native trees planted, and 354 ha assessed with notable habitat improvements.

Our catchment-wide surface water and groundwater monitoring data is providing scientific evidence on nutrient loadings and will demonstrate over time the effectiveness of farm management measures implemented. Our groundwater study has shown that the lake is up to 50% groundwater fed, not the 29% previously estimated. The findings from LIFE projects such as this will further advance knowledge on highly calcified freshwater systems in Ireland, and the findings and solutions can be easily transferred to similar catchments across Ireland and Europe. The project has invested in an education and awareness programme for primary, secondary and third level students, as well as a community outreach campaign through local media and radio. Knowledge transfer is provided to farmers and the wider community at monthly meetings, success being evident in the packed community halls and genuine interest and engagement.

This LIFE-funded project has recognised the grave significance of an issue highlighted by a group of concerned locals for Lough Carra, which, to quote Professor Ken Irvine, professor of aquatic ecosystems at the Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands and one of the world’s leading experts on lake ecosystems, is, in his mind, "up there with the most important lakes in the world". LIFE funding provides the structure and support to implement real and tangible changes for the benefit of water quality and biodiversity while also supporting farm viability and the rural economy. Ending LIFE funding would leave community groups, including the Lough Carra Catchment Association, without the resources or platform needed to drive change. Funding gaps between project phases also erodes trust among landowners and farmers. Without continued LIFE funding, nutrientsensitive Lough Carra faces a very real risk of irreversible ecological collapse, mirroring the devastating decline seen in Lough Neagh. Such a collapse would strip the lake of its natural ability to filter nutrients, with serious implications for regional drinking water security and public health.

This project shows how an empowered local community can deliver sustainable, naturebased solutions while supporting the rural economy, providing essential funding to farmers and enabling them to participate in the emerging environmental services market. In short, the loss of LIFE funding would leave a significant gap in Ireland's ability to deliver on climate, biodiversity and water quality objectives, and represents a backwards step with regard to supporting local communities and rural farm viability.

I thank the committee and am happy to answer any questions.

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements.

I thank the witnesses for coming in and giving their impassioned presentations. Speaking with local farming groups, I asked them what one thing should be implemented. They said it should be a proper environmental scheme. We saw last week the challenges through Europe of not having a ring-fenced scheme. I heard from all the witnesses and know about some of the projects that Dr. McLoughlin has had and how they have been managed through community involvement, community personnel and supporting local jobs. I will have a specific question for Dr. McLoughlin later about what will happen in Kerry. What were the particular challenges that the witnesses had to overcome in dealing with the source of the increased nutrients which have led to the depletion of trout stock, for example? How did they overcome them?

Initially, it is to understand the sources. The catchment of Lough Carra is highly calcified. The project has spent the first three years investing in a groundwater study, which has been key to understanding where the nutrients are coming from. As I mentioned, 50% of the water entering Lough Carra is actually coming from groundwater sources.

And not 29%?

Not the 29%.

What about dealing with the sources of increased nutrients that were coming into the water? Was there buy-in from the local agricultural producers and landowners?

In year one, there was a little bit of the unknown for farmers. Although we had more than 150 farmers submit expressions of interest to the project in year one, we only had 26 farmers involved. We reached our capacity at the end of year two, because farmers saw how the project was being managed.

What was the capacity?

It was 10% of farmers in the catchment, which is 50 farmers. We are at 55 farmers at the moment.

So it doubled in the year?

Yes. They saw it as being locally led and based in the community. They could see the benefits to the farmers in the scheme, which encouraged more to participate.

And to the local economy and farm families too.

Yes.

What would the LIFE project need to expand that? Would it be more funding? Has LIFE been linking in with any other communities to develop similar projects? For example, local angling groups in the tributaries of the Feale in Listowel have been telling me that, 30 years ago, a person could step over the trout in the river on the way to midnight mass, but now they are completely depleted. It is attributed to afforestation and plantation of Sitka spruce, which also has an effect on water vertically drained into the tributaries. It may or may not be a contributory factor to the flooding 14 months ago, but I suspect it was. Have other areas come to LIFE for advice and support?

Yes. There have been a number. I have been invited to talk at a LIFE funding committee meeting that was hosted by the Department of housing about how Lough Carra LIFE is a county council-led LIFE programme. It is only the second one to be county council-led in the country. I was invited to talk about how that came to be.

So the local authorities need to step up?

Yes. Many local authorities were in attendance at that meeting and were interested in seeing how it was funded and resourced. I hope we were able to share what is working for us.

Was there assistance from local authorities or the National Parks and Wildlife Service for people who had queries in order to overcome the challenges that the project faced or to address concerns?

The LIFE programme structure allows this collaborative approach where people can draw on the expertise of the NPWS, which is a body that is probably more experienced in running LIFE programmes. That knowledge is available, but the collaboration is not formally in place. It is more of an informal approach or discussion.

Should it be made more-----

It definitely should be more formal. That would stop people from having to reinvent the wheel every time. The information is there, but it is difficult to know who to talk to. Therefore, if a structure were in place, like an oversight body for the LIFE programmes, it would allow them to run more smoothly.

There is a plan to expand into County Kerry on blanket bogs. Will Dr. McLoughlin address that? He mentioned that expansion. When will it happen?

Yes, we have developed an approach to nature restoration called Natura communities. Ultimately, that taps into the local skills and expertise of people, generally farmers, in a given area. Farming is land management and the slight adaptation of that is blanket bog restoration and so on. We demonstrated that well, under the Department Senator Noonan was in at the time, in County Mayo. We expanded it to Connemara via the Dúlra project, in Mayo via the Atlantic West Community Alliance, and in Donegal via Cairde na hEaragaile. They are locally based and locally embedded restoration programmes. We hope to expand that in 2026. We will do it by taking smaller areas of sites and demonstrating the types of activities that may happen in a given area so farmers can get a sense of and feed into what is happening on the ground. We hope to be on the ground in County Kerry in the coming months to develop that and open opportunities on a local basis for local employment in the area of land restoration.

Does Wild Atlantic Nature have enough funding? Does it need more, and if so, how much?

As it stands, we have good funding. Our core project is primarily funded by EU LIFE, and what we do as a LIFE integrated project, which is slightly different from the traditional projects, is that we can manage new funds that come from different sources such as the Exchequer, including the Department of the Taoiseach via the shared island unit. All of these have been pooled so we are acting like a hub able to avail of funding opportunities under other EU programmes and so on. The core element is that the core team is based on LIFE funding and we have the flexibility of not having the day in, day out tasks that core Government has. The loss of that is a problem for the future.

I thank the witnesses for travelling long distances to be with us. It is important. I thank them for their impassioned opening statements as well. As Dr. McLoughlin said, I am familiar with a number of the projects. I have been out on the field and in the boats with some of them, which was an absolute privilege.

My opening question can go to all the witnesses. Will Breeding Waders EIP and the other LIFE projects, including Dr. Carey's corncrake project, expand on capacity building with communities, particularly landowners, and disparate and diverse stakeholders when setting out on projects? Building trust and relationships in those communities is sometimes a big issue. It is a short cycle of five or seven years typically and it is important to maintain those relationships, once they have been started, in the long term to keep the collaboration going.

I thank Senator Noonan. It is an important point. Agri-environmental schemes are relatively new. They have not been around for generations. In the recent past, we have seen with farmers that the trust issue has been overcome. We built on the back of trust that was developed by LIFE projects and other EIPs in the past. The model of people delivering for nature and getting paid for managing land in a certain way is becoming embedded. When we go into a new area there is trust to be built in local communities, but most farmers from going to the mart and talking to peers will have heard of agri-environmental schemes, whether they are LIFE projects or EIPs, and they are now used to them. We are on the cusp of people getting used to it, factoring it in and nearly looking at their production models as producing cattle and sheep as well as producing curlews or corncrakes. It is an integral part of farm incomes, especially in the more part-time farming model or on more marginal land.

The continuity of funding of agri-environmental schemes is important. The danger is, if we do not have funding that is ring-fenced for it, we will be battling with all other funding streams and everyone will be pulling out of one pot. It is easy for these sorts of things to fall by the wayside. We will regress very quickly to people becoming mistrustful again because they will say they did everything right, they farmed their land in a certain way for five years and now the Government does not want them to do that anymore. It has gone off doing something else. We will come back the next time, because invariably we will have to do more going forward. These matters are not fixed. Our habitats and species are still in decline in many instances and those that are not are only stable. We need to build on them. Therefore, the trust needs to be kept and the way to do that is by continuity of effort over time.

It would be interesting to hear from other contributors on that.

It is obvious that this is the only way to implement. In the context of nature, most of Ireland is privately owned and, as they say in the Burren, the farmer is the first responder to the climate and biodiversity crisis as well. Generally, from a policy perspective, there are best intentions in developing nature, agriculture and water policy and all the rest. People do their absolute level best, but in reality, on the ground, many of the answers are already there. Yes, tweaking is needed, but very often the mechanisms are there, and when a farmer buys into something, there is no stopping the positive outcomes of it. It is massively important. One farmer I think the Senator met in Mayo is Martin Gavin, who works with us a good bit on the ground. He said it was the first time he was told what he can do rather than what he cannot do. That is a classic symbol of how to open doors. Farmers are probably the best group you could ever work with in society because they have to evolve year to year to deal with the conditions and so on. They are a crucial tool, as is building trust. If we can deliver on nature restoration, we can deliver on a lot.

One of the things the LIFE projects brought to the dynamic of agri-environmental schemes, which farmers are very familiar with in Ireland now, is specialist teams who are highly available and locally embedded on the ground, often with very low ratios of field officer to farmer. Imagine having a business with 500 clients. It is hard to have an individual relationship with all of them. LIFE projects, because of their nature, often have lower participation numbers because of resource constraints, but then they have a lower ratio of staff to participant. Therefore, relationships build well, trust builds quickly and the results show that. LIFE projects are able to augment national agri-environmental schemes by providing this level of service, but key to that is that they have a timeframe, so it is important the capacity is built and that the capacity that is built is mainstreamed into the bigger picture.

Ms Meaney mentioned that the Lough Carra project was a local authority-led LIFE project. We heard last week from the Department that no EU units have been set up in our local authorities. We are missing out on other quite significant streams of funding for the environment and climate. Will Ms Meaney expand on the notion she mentioned of the establishment of a LIFE unit in the Department? We are on the cusp of losing LIFE funding altogether, yet there is frustration that we have not got to the point of there being a co-ordinating unit to drive support for projects.

A lot is learned by applying to the LIFE programme for funding. If every project has to go through that process individually without the support and knowledge that has already been built from previous projects, the applications seem more daunting and less enticing to apply for.

That is a barrier to getting this funding into Ireland. I would definitely advocate for a body that brings together that knowledge and expertise and would allow Ireland to apply for more projects and benefit from that funding.

It strikes me that there is almost a dual argument for a co-ordination or learning piece to be there to facilitate other projects. We have had other hearings about the many heavily modified rivers. In other words, we need to make sure that we have those interventions in a time when we can keep our rivers and lakes that have not been pushed into that space but that there is learning for other projects and applicants for the LIFE programmes or similar funding. Then there is the sense of how we do the learning in terms of taking the learning and bringing it to scale because LIFE has a pilot frame. I have seen how one pilot, specifically as Dr. McLaughlin described it, led to thinking about a different kind of pilot. We can move from pilot to pilot but there also is a point where it should be mainstreamed. It has come up in climate committees in three Oireachtais and again and again, we hear that we need to reward farmers and to encourage landowners to engage. These are exactly the schemes that are working. It involves a lot of the smaller farmers, who we often do not necessarily see reflected in the big lobby groups or interests. Its value is clear and there are clear ideas about how it could run better and be translated.

The reason we are having this session is because there is a threat in terms of the continuation of the LIFE funding at European level. As a committee, we need to send our political contribution to Europe in terms of the proposal that has been made, which is that instead of being the dedicated fund that it is now, LIFE funding would be amalgamated into a big fund that includes military defence and security expenditure and a load of other things we know are quite greedy for money under a competitiveness fund. Comments were made about the importance of having this ring-fenced. I was struck by Mr. Murphy's testimony. He spoke about the huge risks if we do not do this. The finance committee produced a report that looked at the fact that in focusing on military and defence security issues, there was a neglect of climate and environmental aspects, which are crucial in terms of our future. I was struck that the title was collaborative conservation. Again, I see the danger of a competitiveness frame being put on something where the benefit is a public benefit and a danger averted. It is not a profiteering model. It is something that has huge benefit for society. Could the witnesses comment on their views on the importance of ring-fencing it and keeping it as a dedicated fund, rather than having it potentially lost in a wider frame?

Without rehashing my opening statement, it is gentler than infrastructural projects and those sorts of things. Generally with our environmental negotiations, it seems that it can easily be pushed to the side. If there is one pot of money, what is whittled down is the environmental or nature restoration side because it is seen as not quite the emergency that it is. Some of these reports are very apt in their timing. These people are not zealots in their approach to nature conservation. They are not making it up. They are saying there is a huge risk of collapse of our natural ecosystems. We saw the knock-on effects of that yesterday with very severe flooding after heavy rain. These things are all connected. They are the same. What we deliver for nature, we deliver for climate and vice versa in many cases. On ring fencing, a Government of the day might turn round in one cycle of government, be very proactive in this space and fund things well but because of the nature of politics, the next Government might take a different approach and say that it is not going to do that so we would lose all that we have built up. The important message is that, unfortunately, when we look at our species and habitats that are most in decline, we can see that it is not a short game. This is a long-term battle to keep them in an Irish landscape. Ireland's landscape is degraded and under a huge amount of pressure. No matter what work is undertaken for five or seven years, it does not fix the problem. There is a bit of a misconception when people talk about rewilding as if everything goes back to where it should be and everything is fine. That is not going to happen in Ireland in the short term. What we need to do is-----

I apologise as I have a vote to go to. I will be listening back. Could the other witnesses speak to that ring fencing?

It is really important. A ring-fenced budget is a priority. If somebody asked me what is needed for nature conservation going forward, I would say it is that ring-fencing of the budget so that at least people know what the pot is and how it can be divided up to maximise its potential.

Niall O'Donoghue spoke last week about Pathfinder projects. That is ultimately what they are. They are research and development projects. We need this space to be able to design on ground level, involve local landowners and communities on ground level, try to test to destruction as such how they work and identify the types of policy mechanisms to expand them for better policy and implementation of policy. We are talking about influencing very large policies such as climate, land use and CAP policies to get the most from them for all stakeholders. To that end, having that space to be able to do that in a five or ten-year period is vital.

Does anybody else wish to add anything?

It is important to note that approximately €50 million of EU funding is sitting here at this committee today, all of which is being leveraged into local economies - largely in Donegal, Mayo, Galway and the west of Ireland. These are often economies where part-time farmers have off-farm incomes so this money is being utilised to create a conservation economy within these areas and put in exceptional value on high nature-value farmland - not for the first time but really with tangible results. The loss of that level of funding stream will have a significant impact on these areas unless we see some form of ring fencing and some sort of continuity. There is also the high risk of slippage because once the work of projects disappears if they have not been mainstreamed, it does not take long for things to settle back into the way they were, which means that all of the effort is potentially lost as well.

Lough Carra is one of the most researched lakes in Ireland but everything is pointing towards the cusp of collapse. It will be devastating if the funding is not continued and we see the ecological collapse of Lough Carra and images similar to those involving Lough Neagh with blue-green algae appearing on the news because we did not invest in water quality and biodiversity.

The witnesses' comments about how we are moving from that "can't do" approach to a "can do" one with landowners and farmers - custodians of the land - are interesting. This is really important. As these schemes have evolved, what was the appeal such that more landowners bought into them and how trust was built so they were encouraged to engage and stay engaged?

It involves the knowledge of agri-environmental schemes that already exists within the farming community because these schemes have been around for a while. When a new project comes out, people are interested in what it is. The next step is when they see a project team that is local and see employment in the local economy and a funding opportunity and valuable income for themselves.

If what you are asking the participant or landowner to do is not a wholesale change, some of our projects sit in very nicely with the less intensive farming model we see on the marginal ground, on high-nature-value farmland or with the part-time farmer, with lower stocking rates, less use of inputs and less modification of land. Sometimes, the sell is that we are not asking the farmers to change all that much, we are asking them to give a commitment to continue to do what they are doing, that they are not going to drain that nice wetland they have down at the back or start using chemicals. It is a continuation of what is there. High-nature-value farmland is what it says, it is high nature. It is maintaining that. The flip side of it is if somebody intensifies and we start losing that high nature value. What we are asking the landowners to do fits well with their model. They understand what agri-environmental schemes and biodiversity-related projects are about. The local sense is that they are giving to the community. The contractors, farmers and landowners are local. A lot of the time the project team is local. The office might be a little bit off-site but there are people on the ground. Trust and friendship develop between the project officers and the farmers.

Does anyone else want to comment on that?

Farmers want to farm in a way that is not going to degrade the local water source. We really find around Lough Carra that they have witnessed the decline of the lake. A lot of them were local anglers and now see that they could spend a whole day on the lake fishing and not catch one trout. That was not the case 20 or 30 years ago. They are open to investing in improving water quality. They see the benefits in that it can reverse the changes of the lake.

It sounds very rosy but at the beginning of our project, there was a lot of concern about peatland restoration, whether we were going to take people's land from them and about what the implications were. That is the beginning of the building of trust. It is being there to answer the questions and take on board fears. Some of those fears are absolutely legitimate. It is then about how we shape the types of programmes that could operate that will ensure the best for those rural areas, so that future policies give rise to better and more prosperous rural communities.

When Ms Meaney mentioned the decline of trout, would she say that Inland Fisheries Ireland has failed in its responsibility to protect the waterways and fishing stock at Lough Carra?

I do not know if I would say that it has failed.

Would you say it has underperformed?

The source of the problem is the agricultural intensification.

Could it have done more, do you think? If you are getting buy-in from the landowners----

It could have advocated for it more, yes. Its voice maybe is not as loud as it could be.

Considering there are multiple stakeholders here, what we are seeing at the moment in respect of Bord Bia and farmers and landowners, and confidence working, if we reverse this, we were talking to landowners and farmers about how they should be doing their business and trying to get trust from them, it is kind of working the other way now. When there are so many different stakeholders involved in different projects and where organisations are trying to keep that trust at a localised level, as well as ensuring consistency in the objective and an uncompromising pathway forward, how do you manage that?

It is a good point. It is about bringing the stakeholders together and unifying the approach. At the start of the project, there was maybe a little bit of difficulty in getting some of those stakeholders on board. IFI is an advisory partner on the project but ideally that could have been a bigger role within the project.

Did it decline that participation?

Not so much that it declined but it was a little bit late to the discussions.

Did it just not get out of bed in time?

I think it did not realise the timeframe for the project was being agreed and it missed out on the agreement.

A key stakeholder with responsibility for stock in the waterways, where the key objective is restoration, conservation and mitigating impacts, decided not to get involved until a later stage.

Subsequently, it is now getting involved.

Now we are reading in a report about trout population declining. When such a scenario arises, who can we sound the alarm with? I do not mean to be picking on IFI here. We are trying to make a case back to European level for funding, there is an agency or stakeholder that has a responsibility at the table and it has decided not to set the alarm clock. When there is an agency or stakeholder that is not playing ball, how do we sound the alarm sooner to ensure the committee and the stakeholders involved in the project are aware of it? How do we make stakeholders aware that they need to get in gear and get to the table? How do we work that?

Does anyone want to comment on that? It is a good question.

In the case of our project, as a LIFE-integrated project we have got ten project partners. At times it is like herding cats. It is massively complex. Each of them has its own day-to-day tasks. I will say that from a LIFE perspective, the National Parks and Wildlife Service has very good experience and several of our project partners have very good experience. In the case of some semi-State bodies and so on, there is not so much experience. They do not necessarily know what is involved. I would say that is all the more reason for having these coherent national co-ordination hubs to be able to manage, explain and build capacity within the respective organisations, to show what is in it for them and walk them through how they can deliver on their policy obligations and so on. It is undoubtedly a capacity-building gap that, in the context of Wild Atlantic Nature and so on, we are trying to address within various Departments as best we can, through support, I suppose.

I have a couple of questions on that last point. We had this issue on Lady's Island, which we looked at previously at this committee. Everybody was aware that there was an issue building over many years but no public agency really seemed to step up and take it on to try to resolve it. I take Dr. McLoughlin's point. He is bringing groups of people together. They are all on the ground. It is probably harder to find one leadership group that is actually responsible for pulling them all together. I imagine it is difficult to do from a public agency perspective.

On the farming organisations, did Mr. Murphy engage with the representative organisations? Did they engage with you? Would they have even much of a footprint in terms of where you were working and how did you find them?

We certainly did. Part of what we need to deliver is working with all relevant stakeholders and certainly the farming lobby groups are important. We have had good discussions with the IFA and I have sat on some of their environmental committee meetings. We got on quite well. We have some IFA members who are signed up and working and managing land on behalf of the project now. I would say that we have got on well. We also had input and discussions with the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association in relation to dogs off leads and the impact not only on their sheep but also on ground-nesting birds. I would say that it is positive. I have had no meeting with any of the farming lobby groups that I came out of and was disappointed in. I think they realise that a lot of these projects are a valuable income stream for their members in certain areas. There seems to be a general acceptance among any farmers or farming groups I have come across that we need to do something about nature loss. They are farming the land. They can see that where there used to be birds or a certain type of habitat, there is not any more. A lot of them would have a genuine concern about it. Obviously they must take into account that it is a family farm, there is a farm income and everybody has children to rear, people to put through college and bills to pay. There is a financial aspect to it as well. If we can sit in beside them and we are paying and asking them to do things that are constructive for nature and nature restoration but that also fit in with their models, it is good. The IFA has been fairly proactive with us in spreading the word.

If I could come back to the previous question about co-ordination, there are capacity issues across the board. Lady's Island was used as an example. There can be hesitance on the part of any particular Department or stakeholder to take ownership of it.

In a roundabout way LIFE projects can be that proxy co-ordinator at local site level or within a range of sites because they have a brief to deliver action in particular areas and they are often very well placed and very mobile to act as co-ordinators for particular sites, particularly related to conservation measures on sites. The one thing that LIFE projects bring is capacity. Because of the way they are funded they can hire specialist staff to deal with that particular problem whereas other agencies have very dynamic core work, for example stuff coming out of left field all the time for Government priority. LIFE projects, however, can become points of contact in these areas. They can become a point of contact for the stakeholders in those areas. Farmers can go to their LIFE project to ask questions about the ACRES co-operation project, if they need activities requiring consent from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, or if there are issues with the local authority. They often go to the local LIFE project which is a hub for all of the answers to these questions because they know, due to their structure, who to talk to. They are time limited but LIFE projects can fill that role really well. One can imagine that without them being in place with these problem-solving issues we would have a lot of people sitting around and maybe nobody taking ownership of them.

Do local authority staff get seconded to LIFE projects? Are any of the witnesses seconded from a local authority to work on a LIFE project? No. So the local authority links are not done that way.

We are led by the local authority.

Okay.

On that point, we talk quite a bit about a whole-of-government approach and an all-of-society approach to nature conservation and to climate. That is an easy sort of expression that rolls off the tongue fairly well but it is very hard to implement, as we all know, because there are many different agencies and Departments. Building on what Dr. Carey has said, projects such as a European Innovation Partnership, EIP, scheme or a LIFE project can pull those things together, not only on a local scale but also on a national scale. From our launch in mid-2024 as an EIP with responsibility for breeding wader management, we have been talking to the National Parks and Wildlife Service as a co-funder and to our largest funder in the Department of agriculture. We are also managing land with Bord na Móna, we are talking to Coillte about how they can manage land, and we are putting in place management plans with the ESB. I had an e-mail recently from Irish Rail about land it owns along the callows. The actual projects can be the hub for allowing Departments and Government bodies that are very busy in their own right to pull together because somebody must concentrate on these things. Who else is going to look at breeding waders, unless somebody is focused on breeding waders, or the corncrake, and machair life? They are a really important vehicle for allowing Governments to fulfil what we need to fulfil in relation to nature restoration.

On the last query about farm organisations, in our case we have very good engagement on a local level. To that end, the way it has worked is that where problems have come up, often relating to larger policies such as CAP, a farmer or the local county chair of one of the organisations can come in to us and say "Can we get help to do X, Y and Z", and so on. We have been very successful in leading and supporting applications for other EIPs. For example, FARM-Up is one EIP that is run through the South West Mayo Development Company. That is €1.7 million into that local area in Mayo. In Donegal we have the WaterLANDS project, which is Horizon 2020 funded. It is 100% EU funded for €2.1 million to address these types of areas. In terms of the functional aspects on the ground, using the LIFE programme as a hub is a great kind of drop-in to go and look for these answers for which, quite frankly, there is not necessarily the capacity across government to do that if they have their day-to-day tasks to do.

Ms Meaney said earlier that the LIFE programme is led by the local authority. What does that mean in practical terms? Is it that the money is going to the local authority and it is coming on then to LIFE? Is that what this means? Who sets and who picks the projects? Who co-ordinates? In brief terms what does that look like?

The specific Lough Carra LIFE project came about from a local community group that advocated for it and worked with Mayo County Council to put in an application under the LIFE programme. The application went through on the agreement that Mayo County Council would be an associated beneficiary, so they would fund 40% and EU-----

So it is joint funding.

It is joint funding, yes. They were one of the funding contributors. The EU funds 60% and Mayo County Council, along with the remaining five beneficiaries, funds the remaining 40%.

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I really admire the work they have done on the Lough Carra LIFE project. I do not represent that area but my dad has roots in Mayo, down the west. Reference was made to dog ownership. Given his experience, does Mr.Murphy have any advice on dog ownership with regard to the birds on Bull Island in north Dublin? It is one of the most important bird sites. Is Mr. Murphy familiar with Dollymount at the moment and the current status of how they are going on it?

The EIP project is a breeding wader project. Generally the birds that we see on Bull Island and these areas are in big numbers during the winter. They are winter migrants but they can also be Irish birds that are feeding up and using these areas to put on condition over the winter. Some of them are coming from harsher climates to Ireland's fairly moderate climate. Some are our Irish birds as well. It is really important that those birds go back to breeding grounds, be they in Ireland, Scandinavia or Scotland, in good condition. They do so by being allowed to feed unhindered. Loose dogs and dogs running on strands is not just a north Dublin phenomenon; it happens in loads of areas. In a lot of cases, people do not know any better so in my opinion it is an educational brief. There are very few people that get up in the morning and decide to go to stop birds being successful at a breeding ground or from feeding, or where they are roosting. There are lots of things we could put in place. As an EIP we are in discussion with the NPWS on an ambitious awareness campaign around recreational disturbance. Some of this will involve dogs and dogs off lead. Hopefully this will develop into something that people can understand and then they can say "actually I have seen that sign, which means I must keep my dog on the lead".

I agree with Mr. Murphy 100%. W were speaking about this last week. The birds are not just in danger; they are going extinct on the island. Related to that, at the moment when people go down to Bull Island they are not aware they are in a biosphere and they are not aware they are in a UNESCO heritage site. There is a lack of public awareness. I am of the belief that for us to protect the environment we need more people to turn on to love the environment. For people to love the environment, they need to be able to go to the environment. At the moment one of the few places in north Dublin where one can have one's dog off leash is a small area in St. Anne's Park. The bark surface in the large-dog area was recently redone. I thank Dublin City Council for that. There are not enough areas for people to be able to let their dogs off leash. Would the witnesses want to see a similar proposal where they add an area designated for dogs off leash on Bull Island, near where there is already traffic to due to coffee shops and people coming down with cars? Would that concentrate the traffic and people having their dogs off leash and then allow for the other side of the island where there is supposed to be complete ban on dogs? Would the birds then know to go to that side or how would that work?

The intricacies of some of these sites make it hard to tell. Generally, birds do not spend a huge amount of time feeding or roosting in an area that is busy. They tend to go to the quieter spots. There would be loads of local knowledge embedded within the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and on Bull Island in particular. As the Deputy has said, people need to get out in nature. A very famous early environmentalist from America said that you cannot care about something that you do not know about. People need to get out and see the wonder of these places and the wonder of the birds. To my mind it sounds like a good idea to have an area to let a dog off that has no impact on birds, if we can then be stricter in our enforcement of where we need to enforce. I think that makes perfect sense but it is about that awareness. These things happen over time. Education happens slowly but if we can get it into the schools, onto the media channels and get people talking about it, it becomes a little bit of a no-no. People might think "Look at your man over there, he has a dog off the leash and he should not have". A lot of people now assume that if the dog is off the lead, it is fine.

I agree with Mr. Murphy 100% about people having that awareness, especially if we can mitigate the damage the people already do by just being there, with heavy footfall and so on. There are areas where a little local knowledge and a few local reps could definitely have an influence.

I have been speaking to some of the representatives. As it is a protected area, they are having a lot of difficulty installing signs or installing something to tell people. Obviously, everything has to be considered, including the soil and that you are not disturbing the common lizard that is on the island. Things like that. I would love a bit of joined-up thinking between Departments, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and Dublin City Council in relation to that.

To tell some stories from constituents, staff are on the beach at the moment and there is great work being done, but there are some people who are not happy with how they are dealing with dogs off the leash. We need to have a clear platform in terms of how rangers, including park rangers, are enforcing the rule around dogs off the leash.

I appreciate the engagement.

If no one wants to reply, we will do a second round because members have indicated that they want to come back in. I know that Senator Higgins wants to come back in. I call Deputy Daly.

I will be brief. The Cathaoirleach already asked about the buy-in from local farming groups. What about Coillte and forestry? Has there been much engagement with them?

Coillte is a partner on LIFE IP Wild Atlantic Nature, in that its remit and project task are ultimately the restoration of peatland from historic coniferous plantation. It is very driven and experienced in that. Coillte has run and led several LIFE projects in the past. It has considerable barriers in terms of getting through the new activity of restoration of peatland from forestry. Coillte has met regulatory barriers over the last five years while looking to get sites over the line in terms of restoration.

Did Dr. McLoughlin say that Coillte had been "lucky to get sites over the line"?

I mean getting sites over the line by having them consented for restoration to go ahead. Coillte has to go through a planning process. It is a capacity issue within local authorities and the Department of agriculture in terms of the forest service.

Does Dr. McLoughlin mean planning in terms of preparing or planning in terms of local authority applications?

Forest-to-bog restoration requires planning permission. What does that require? What kinds of assessment are needed to be able to do that? Although these sites are generally failed forestry with low-economic returns, if any. Deep peats are intensely damaging pieces of ground in the overall context of Natura 2000. That is Coillte's function in our project. It is about teasing through these barriers that Coillte has had over the last five years. Coillte is starting to make progress, in that planning has been consented for Derryclare. Coillte has a number of sites with us, including Derrylea and Cappaghoosh. Coillte is in the process of going to local authorities seeking planning permission for those. It is a very long burn.

Is it at an early stage with the local authorities?

In the case of Galway County Council, the council is starting to get up to speed with what is involved here. However, it has been a very slow process up to now.

Could local authorities be more co-operative with something that seems like a no-brainer?

It is about the capacity-building side of things. It is something we are operating with. If it is completely new to a local authority, the council is probably right to be risk averse because it has not come across this before. The cogs turn slowly on new programmes and new approaches. That is the barrier there. Once we have gone through the process once, the tracks are laid and, hopefully, it will become a lot more straightforward.

Where in County Kerry is the new project coming to?

Not far from Glencar, so it will be in the MacGillycuddy's Reeks special area of conservation, SAC. It will be between Glencar and Waterville. We will be starting in that area. I look forward to engaging when we are on the ground.

Yes, because there are issues in other areas that Dr. McLoughlin and I can talk about.

Absolutely. That is exactly our purpose, namely, asking where the issues are and whether we can help. If we can, we will go for it.

We have a couple of trips planned for the committee for the year, but I highly recommend a trip out to one of the LIFE projects, if for nothing better than to see a load of Oireachtas Members in a boat.

A boating weekend up the Shannon.

It could give a real flavour of the real significance of these projects in rural communities. It is hugely important. All of the opening contributions mentioned that economic benefit for local communities. Will the witnesses elaborate a little bit on the economic multiplier and the money coming into a local economy through contractors, etc., and how the loss of that would be really felt?

Regarding the figures we would have estimated as a project spend at the start, and we are 18 or 19 months in now, we will see 600 farmers receive a payment. Our average payment will be somewhere between €4,000 and €5,000 per annum per participant. On top of that, there will be significant investment in habitat creation and habitat rehabilitation on privately owned land. That will mainly be delivered by local contractors. We are looking at millions of euro going into local economies in rural areas and in areas that do not have many other income sources. It is really important and it is powerful.

As well as that, there are the jobs in those local areas. If we look at this year, the EIP will have around 42 or 43 contracted nest protection officers. We have a staff of 16 or 17 and we have 160 farmers already signed up with expressions of interest, with farm plans gone out to probably a similar number again. There is significant money going into these areas from the project. That is in addition with the work other projects are doing. We are an EIP, so we are funded by CAP as opposed to where LIFE funding comes from. A bird on the ground does not mind where the money to protect it comes from. The farmer on the ground delivering measures does not really mind which pot of money it comes from, once the money is there and the money comes. That is the main thing, and that trust is built up.

In the context of Wild Atlantic Nature and similar to the other LIFE projects as well, our core fund is €20.6 million. Through other funds we have leveraged, there is an additional €35 million, so we are talking about at least €55 million in only the first half of the project that is going specifically into these project areas. That is important in itself but even more important are the opportunities it has created in terms of upskilling as well as preparing so as to be ready for future policies in climate, land use and agriculture. That is a multiplier that is really considerable and worth well above the hundreds of millions of euro.

To give a brief flavour of that kind of spend, Corncrake LIFE, which is a relatively small project, contributed €670,000 to our area in Donegal, €1.1 million in Mayo and €350,000 in County Galway. That is approximately €2.1 million spent directly to farmers and local service providers like agricultural contractors, ferry operators, etc. That is a significant input into these areas over a short period of time and makes a significant contribution, not just to the broader economy, but to individuals as well. The feedback we got from our socioeconomic assessment is that this kept farms alive in many cases and also kept many young people in these rural areas who would have sought employment elsewhere because suddenly there was an asset on the farm that was worth an additional €5,000 or €10,000 per annum, which leverages money into the farm to keep it in viable. This EU LIFE money goes directly into these local economies and makes a significant contribution.

I will give Senator Higgins three minutes because she missed some time the first round.

I do not know if people got to come back further in response to my question.

They responded to your question while you were not here.

My question had been on ring-fencing. The other piece was on what Dr. Carey was just saying regarding how this benefits smaller farmers. As somebody who comes from the west, where there would not necessarily be the richer, larger farms, but small farmers, it has been particularly valuable. The witnesses have commented on the ring-fencing. Could they comment on just transition funding?

I know this is separate from just transition funding but it provides another strand for farmers who may be looking to shift models. I know a lot of small farmers are trying to compete under the intensive farming model, which often does not serve them well. This provides them with a stepping stone towards a different model of farming. Will the witnesses comment on that?

We had a question about bringing it to scale. Ms Meaney spoke about co-ordinating so that new applicants could learn from what previous applicants had learned. Perhaps Dr. McLoughlin might speak about things like Coillte. Coillte has a huge amount of land. It is very resourced. Are there any good examples of lessons learned from a LIFE project being taken to scale and becoming a national scheme? Are there areas where that should happen? Coillte's mandate should be shifted to give it a stronger biodiversity mandate. That might make it easier for it to take these things to scale. My questions were on taking things to scale post LIFE project and how this might support a just transition.

I do not know if Mr. Murphy had a chance to address the security piece. I spoke about the competitiveness frame perhaps not being the frame. I was not just talking about ring-fencing, but a competitiveness frame. I am very worried that we have seen attempts to take Horizon Europe funding for security and defence. Just transition funding has also been taken for that area. It is important that collaboration be valued, not just competition.

I will comment on some of that and focus on the point relating to the just transition for a second. We see this as something to be delivered among some of our project teams. Dr. Carey and Dr. McLoughlin will add to this. Whether a project team was established as an EIP team or the Corncrake LIFE project team, that team is on the ground and will know where additional funding lies. Wild Atlantic Nature does this very well. As a project team, you can identify other funding streams for a farmer. That can be very important because finding the details regarding certain applications can be slightly frustrating for farmers. They do not know where to look, what to do or that they are entitled to it. As an example, some of the measures the Corncrake LIFE project is delivering are also measures under ACRES, which has a very large CAP budget. Farmers are better off drawing down funding for those measures. Our EIP or LIFE funding can then build on those measures. It is the same with the just transition. That is focused on some of the areas that we focus on. There is no reason there cannot be collaboration in our efforts but somebody needs to focus on it. These things do not just deliver themselves. That is where the project team can be important. It involves the project team proactively finding out what just transition is, what it is trying to fund and how to lever funding from that. I hope that answers some of the Senator's questions.

On the just transition, we obviously have lots of European regulations and directives that we need to transpose and deliver on the ground. From the perspective of a farmer or landowner, what these mean on the ground can be massively daunting. There are always unintended consequences in delivering large-scale policy measures. Our role is to test that at ground level and to knock the edges off, as needs be, to make it practical. It is a two-way street. We provide feedback to policymakers on how things are or are not working on the ground. On the other level, we provide feedback to farmers and others and answer questions on how these things operate. From the just transition perspective, although not necessarily on the funding side of things, it is ultimately about knocking the corners off things that could otherwise be very unworkable or even damaging at a local level. That is very much top of our agenda.

On scaling up, we need to be thinking about that on day 1 when a LIFE project starts. All of our work needs to be done with a view to scaling it up. It is a constant challenge. There are some excellent examples. In the additional information we supplied, which I hope the Senator has received, I provided a link to a paper we published earlier this month. In that paper, we looked at the trajectory of the development of results-based payments in Ireland. That is a classic example. Beginning with a pilot programme, the number of farmers involved in result-based payments for agri-environment schemes grew from 20 to 50, 100, 1,000, 10,000 and up to the 20,000 they cover today. It goes through that in very great detail. It is an excellent example. The European Commission has cited us as a good example of scaling things up. Another example is that of the natural communities I mentioned to Deputy Daly earlier. That is where we pilot on the ground in a small area and then expand as we go before ultimately looking at policy mechanisms to deliver from here on out.

I have two questions from my perspective. One of the things that came up last week was the strength of some of the European links and some of the collaborations. Do the witnesses' projects have any kind of ongoing contact with projects in other European jurisdictions, perhaps on the Continent? I am talking about ground level activity.

One of our project partners is the University of Santiago de Compostela in the north of Spain. That is one of the associated beneficiaries of the project, so we work very closely with it. In 2025, we had ten visits to other member states. We were invited and asked to present on the work we do. We ultimately build links from such visits. We put together additional project proposals. Part of that complementary funding I mentioned - the €35 million - is with organisations in other member states. For example, WaterLANDS is co-ordinated by UCD. There are 27 different partners involved across ten different member states. We are very much embedded across other EU member states in that regard.

Delivery of all EIPs involves the dissemination of information. It is part of the role and what you are trying to do. You get your learnings but there is no point in sitting on learnings and being the only one to know. You must disseminate them. We have quite a bit of contact with groups and other projects working in similar fields across Europe. As an example, I recently sat on a working group chaired by the International Union for Conservation of Nature with regard to invasive species, including American mink. From that, we formed an EU-wide working group with a view to determining best methodologies in controlling, if not eradicating, American mink, which put a significant downward pressure on ground-nesting birds. As that went on, we subsequently got to draw down additional funding from the NPWS. We now have Ireland's first pilot American mink eradication programme in a large, 2,600 sq. km area of the midlands. A lot of the learnings from that come through this working group on mink control, which began at European level.

All the projects have links to other member states. We all also have very strong links with the UK and Northern Ireland. We should not take it for granted that Ireland is seen as an exemplar in this space. I am not just talking about the LIFE projects we deliver - we generally over-deliver on our LIFE projects - but also the development of results-based agri-environmental schemes. Other member states are looking at what Ireland is doing. We are leading on this in many areas. We have built up a head of steam on this. It is being rolled out at a national level through ACRES. There are lessons to be learned. We should not rest on our laurels just because we are ahead of the pack. We should stay ahead of the pack. LIFE programme funding has contributed significantly to that over the years, from the Burren LIFE project, which was one of the first more than 25 years ago, right through to where we are today. The LIFE programme has significantly contributed to Ireland being one of the top students when it comes to delivering results-based agri-environmental schemes across Europe.

Back in October of last year, I presented to a LIFE meeting in Brussels. This brought together current LIFE projects in Europe that were working on freshwater systems. The approach I presented on was the involvement of community groups in advocating for local water quality.

They were very interested to hear about the Lough Carra Catchment Association, how it has been ringing the bell for decades on the deterioration of Lough Carra and how it manifested in LIFE programme funding.

Senator Noonan mentioned Lough Carra. When we were looking at Lady's Island, I recall Lough Carra was a project that was pointed to as an exemplar of community involvement. It came up six months ago. The suggestion of a site visit is a good one.

The committee would be very welcome.

One final question. The mainstreaming of funding also came up last week. The NPWS mentioned it. What is the right place for this funding to come from, all things being equal? Should it be the Department of agriculture? Should it be local authorities? If it is mainstreamed, where should it sit?

Maybe it should not sit in any one particular area. CAP and the CAP budget will have to deliver for nature - we will have to have the agriculture putting in place measures to protect nature on agricultural land – but we will also need additional funding through our nature restoration plans and others for bespoke management, for monitoring of what is happening and for scientifically led additional inputs that we need for some of our species and habitats that are doing really badly. They are on the brink of not being in Ireland any more. I do not think everything should rest with the Department of agriculture in the context of nature restoration or conservation. It has a huge part to play. From a mainstreaming point of view, we would like to see an ACRES-type model continuing and being expanded upon. I think bolt-on, speciality-type projects are needed to sit above, below, beside or wherever you want to put them. If that funding does not come through LIFE and dedicated funding through the EU it must come through Exchequer funding – mainly the nature restoration plan and others. Logically, the National Parks and Wildlife Service is well-placed to deliver what is needed for nature.

Specifically on mainstreaming as opposed to the continuation of LIFE-type programmes, ultimately it is organs that work well that need to be carried on and implemented by the Department of agriculture, the National Parks and Wildlife Service or whichever other entity is most appropriate. The classic example is where there is successes within wilding back to nature - corncrakes, waders, Lough Carra or whatever - they need to be embedded in under CAP and so on.

In our case, we have a retrofitting programme that we are operating with SEAI. That relates to the reduction of turf cutting at Natura 2000 sites. Where that is successful and so on, then maybe SEAI is the best place for it. We need to be able to demonstrates where it fits, how it sits and so on. It is devolving the paths of the project that would work best, identifying where they should be and operating from there rather than one single entity.

If no one else wishes to come in, on behalf of the committee, I thank all the witnesses for taking part in this session. We will be publishing all the opening statements on the committee’s website.