Mr. Conor McCabe:

I thank Deputy Ó Broin for his comments and questions. I am not sure where to start. To be fair, the two questions posed by the Deputy are not really for us. The Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2018 was passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas and written into law. We are only following the lead that Members such as Deputy Ó Broin would have fed into the legislative process. We are following that to a T by seeking to have a public hearing on this plan. Any committee can engage with us on it. I am not sure what more I can say. The legislation was written and approved by both Houses and it is line with the Constitution, I presume. It is not for me to comment further. As I said, we are following the legislation only recently passed in 2018. This is part of that process. The recommendations the committee decides to make are a matter for the committee further to this process. As I said last week, my team and I are open to any type of hearing on this. We are happy to make ourselves available to any committee that would like to engage with us.

On the marine protected areas, as the Deputy will know, there is a separate process under way. The public consultation is currently under way on a very thorough expert review report which is in the public domain and available on gov.ie. I invite all stakeholders and members to make their contributions to that consultation.

There will be legislation following on from that consultation and any review of same. I expect the legislation to be published in the next couple of years and to appear before this committee.

There are special areas of conservation, SACs, in maritime areas. It is not just about marine protected areas, MPAs. The National Parks and Wildlife Service has had input into many of the decisions made by An Bord Pleanála and so on. It is not as if they will be taken in isolation of environmental concerns. The NMPF is clear that there must be an ecosystem-based approach to areas' development. Environmental concerns are at the forefront. In fact, the largest elements of the NMPF are environmental concerns, which are up front and centre, and how we try to address those.