Ms Laura Brien:

In terms of our staffing, as Dr. Mellett said, we have a staff of approximately 25 people on site at the moment. Excluding myself, everyone else has come on secondment from a range of Government Departments over the last six to 18 months, basically to help us to get up and running form day one. That is very positive and we really welcome the commitment of the various staff who have joined us in this new start-up agency. We are starting our recruitment. We have various job ads out at the moment and we will continue to do that over the next six to 12 months. We hope to get up to around 55 staff by the end of Q1 of 2024. We are recruiting across everything, including in the corporate services area. We are also looking for people who will help us with the consenting process. We are looking at technical staff, including marine scientists and ecologists. We also need to beef up our experience and expertise in the areas of compliance and enforcement. We will be taking on some new compliance and enforcement roles that did not exist before, particularly around the offshore renewables piece. In regard to those projects being consented by An Bord Pleanála, we will be the enforcement arm for those. That is where we are on the staffing piece.

In terms of the drainage piece, we will mainly focus on working with Uisce Éireann. For example, if Uisce Éireann needs to put in place any sort of drainage pipes that drain into the sea, it will come to us for a marine area consent because effectively Uisce Éireann will be occupying the seabed for those outflow pipes. In regard to any of that physical infrastructure that hits the maritime area, we will be consenting. When we look at that, we will work closely with the relevant local authorities. However, the local authorities will be responsible for the development consents for those types of projects and we will look at the marine area consents and the right to occupy the seabed for any of those outflow pipes that come into the maritime area.