Mr. Conor McCabe:

I thank the Deputy for her comments and questions. I will take the ones on the consultation, the impact of Covid and the resources required into the future.

On a very practical basis, we were in the middle of a public consultation when Covid kicked in. We had already visited 11 coastal locations around the country, from Killybegs right down to Tralee, and we were working our way up the east coast when Covid kicked in. We had to suspend our public engagement part, but at that point we ran the first ever Civil Service public consultation online, so we reacted quite well. We also changed the end date for final submissions to April. I think the original date was at the end of February. We took into account the public's reaction to that. I am confident enough that the team reacted really well. There were very practical considerations in that the Department had to move resources to more urgent areas.

That certainly created a time lag but thanks to the good work of the team we will come in on time in terms of both the Bill and the national marine planning framework or NMPF.

In terms of the resources required, we have two reference points. One is a recent air wind report that pointed to the fact that 30 human people are needed into the future to run the marine planning system. We are undergoing our own review that will look at the resources required in our Department, post the Bill, in the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, again post Bill, in An Bord Pleanála and in the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, most likely. The report and review should be carried out over the next couple of months so we will be in a better position to answer that question. The air wind report is a good report. .