Ms Karin Dubsky:

I apologise if my presentation is a little haphazard because I have been ill over the weekend. We also thought our presentation was to be at 2.30 p.m., so one of our members will come in later with some material for the committee.

The Bill is comprehensive in that it covers many aspects. However, it is standing on its own without the framework of coastal zone management. In our view it is time to do the impossible. If a coastal zone management framework is not in place, the demands on local authorities, in particular, will be very great. Many of the functions which are with the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government or the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, will be transferred to local authorities, in particular, the functions relating to the inter-tidal, nearshore area. I work a lot with local authorities which are the regional co-ordinators for the coastwatch survey. I know the capabilities and in-house expertise of the local authorities. I fear they are being given a very great amount of extra responsibility. To do this work well requires extra staff. Will it be possible for them to get expert staff who are qualified in marine matters? So far as I am aware, only one local authority has a person with good marine knowledge.

Coastwatch Europe has one over-arching request. This Bill has two aims: first, to align the foreshore consensus into the planning system, and second, to provide a coherent mechanism to facilitate and manage development activity in the exclusive economic zone, EEZ. Coastwatch Europe urges the committee to add a third aim, to ensure the Aarhus Convention on access to information, public participation and decision-making will be fully integrated into the foreshore area. At present, Ireland has made significant strides in implementing the Aarhus Convention. We were very late but we took it on board in the environmental area. However, it peters out at the shore, as it were. Coastwatch Europe has scrutinised the Bill for its compliance with the Aarhus Convention and we believe the Bill as drafted will still be seriously lacking in several areas with regard to access to information, public participation and access to justice, mainly because it omits the fisheries and agriculture sectors. That omission means Ireland will not be compliant with the Aarhus Convention. That is the main reason and there are other areas, in particular with regard to erosion control. Coastwatch Europe urges the committee to consider that the marine environment is ten times bigger than our land area. It is our commons in that it belongs to all of us. If Ireland could present a new foreshore Act which is a model of public participation and access to justice, this will be noticed abroad.

There are two other areas where we believe something could be done and which are detailed in our written submission. The first area is ownership. There is a morass of contradictory information or none at all about who owns what on the foreshore. This new Bill should be the means of providing clarity about the estimated several thousand bits of foreshore which belong to individuals. Otherwise it will be very difficult to have coherent management. We know from experience that whenever anything unforeseen happens on the shore, everyone scurries to their books to try to find out whether anybody owns anything. Days can be lost in this search and if the activity on the foreshore is illegal, this delay is serious.

The Bill contains some key proposals which should be explored in more detail to ascertain the cost implications and the need to amend other legislation. For example, environmental impact statements and appropriate assessments are to be carried out by An Bord Pleanála. If a local authority with a coastal zone like that of my county of Wexford or like Donegal, with a lot of Natura 2000 sites, is asked to extend its five year development plan to include the low water mark, it will not have control over the Natura 2000 sites - anything to do with planning must go to An Bord Pleanála - and also no control over anything with regard to aquaculture. The local authorities are in a very difficult position because they can only control so much. All of the activities they do not control will need access to shore. Somebody needs to drive to shore or to walk to shore and this will have an impact on the shore. It would be extremely useful to have a collaboration framework - coastal zone management - or some form of management unit to bring everything together. It could be established as a new task force. The Minister has set up two task forces to deal with the marine and with Food Harvest 2020 and our ocean wealth. If he were to set up a third task force on coastal zone management and coherent protection and management of the coastal zone between the different actors, that could be a way of having the Bill within that framework.

I wish to make some brief points on climate change. The foreshore Bill should take climate change much more into account than it does. I was in Belfast where the Northern Irish authorities are looking at their shoreline management adjustments for climate change. We might be able to do quite a lot of work on a cross-Border basis.

I also wish to highlight that the foreshore end of the cross-Border issues is a hairy area. Quarries are operating North and South without licences. Aquaculture companies are also operating without licences. Donegal County Council has applied for a compulsory purchase order, CPO - perhaps it has gone through - regarding the Lough Foyle foreshore, which the North believes belongs to it. However, the application went to our Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. The cross-Border area needs particular attention.

I will leave it there. My comments were meant to give members an idea of the overall scope. We also performed an audit, as there were a few small, unintentional errors in the Bill. They can be examined easily.