Mr. Dave Walsh:

Not at all. It is very timely in the context of the marine Bill moving through the Oireachtas. We have obviously adapted our systems and capacity to ensure that we have the right skill set, as well as the numbers to process efficiently any applications or appeals that come to us. As I indicated, the Department and the Minister have been very supportive in ensuring that we have received approval for the resources, both financial and staffing, in recent years.

In our submission we outlined that we have a workforce plan currently before the Department for consideration. As part of that, we acknowledge and recognise the challenge that the board and the wider public system face in terms of ensuring that any infrastructure projects that are critical to economic recovery and delivery of the national development plan can be expedited and prioritised. Marine is a brand new function, so what we are proposing as part of our workforce plan is to create a marine and climate unit to deal with renewables and climate in order to have the expertise to draw on, both internally within the organisation and, where we need particular expertise on hydrological issues or fisheries expertise, that we have panels of people on which to draw. This will be to ensure that when we receive very complex applications from developers and from the State in some cases, we will have the skill set to analyse them and ensure that we can fulfil all of our requirements under the directives and national law. The creation of a marine and climate unit will further embed that and allow us to have a team that interacts and with which we share information and ensure a consistent approach to solar, wind, offshore developments and marine-related activities. We have had an ecologist on our team since 2019 to further assist us in being able to dive deep into some of the environmental issues.

Separate to that, there are obviously other elements in the context of ensuring that we have the capacity for the administrative supports that we require, but we are gearing up well in advance of when the marine provisions come into effect because we know that there is a pent-up demand and applications will be coming in the door. We want to be ready and ahead of the game.