Mr. Donal Maguire:

To some extent as BIM representatives we are speaking out of school here because we are not the competent authority when it comes to licensing but we are deeply involved in it along with our colleagues in the other agencies and therefore we have had to develop a deep knowledge of the topic.

Leaving the history aside and using the horrible catch phrase "We are where we are", which nobody likes to use, the problem is that the State has had a judgment made against it in the European Court of Justice. We narrowly avoided having daily fines imposed because of this delinquency on the part of the system. To avoid that the State has had to get involved in a long series of negotiations with the Directorate-General for the Environment bringing colleagues from the National Parks and Wildlife Service and other agencies, along with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to seek their agreement on the way forward. That has resulted in this complex plan to try to bring the system back into compliance with the directives.

Another problem that arose along with the difficulty with appropriate assessment was that our system did not have a formal way of declaring whether an individual project, apart from a salmon farming project, needed an EIS. Shellfish projects also have to be vetted for EIS as well as dealing with the Natura 2000 issue.

The short answer to the Deputy's question as to how long it will take is that we do not know because as yet nothing has come through fully from the new system from one end to the other. We hope that is just about to happen in Castlemaine Harbour where the very first aquaculture licences that are in full compliance with all the directives are about to issue.

Thereafter, it is hoped that as the system gains momentum and as custom and practice build up, the entire system will speed up. However, nobody could give a straight answer in that regard at present.