Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I accept the spirit in which he is conducting the debate and I want to do likewise. I am still not clear on the relationship between the policy statement, the marine planning framework and the marine spatial plans. I am more confused now than when I first read the legislation. When the Minister of State comes to respond, I am really interested to know the following.

If the planning framework is the overarching planning framework for the marine, it has or should have a variety of spatial and temporal detail through its maps and so forth. I am trying to work out what the policy statement is and how it interacts with that. Is one guiding the other or is it a summary of the other? It would be very helpful if the Minister of State could give greater clarity on that.

The second issue is a question I asked in the first round. Will the drafting and approval by the Minister and the Cabinet of the policy statement require SEAs or AAs? That is very important. I am also unclear about what the full level of consultation is. The Minister of State said he has outlined some of that in his amendments, but perhaps he can talk through that again in plain English. What opportunities would the public have?

With respect to the role of the Oireachtas, I appreciate the Minister of State's view. These might not be the exact words he used - I am paraphrasing and I apologise if I have got it wrong - but there was a suggestion that this might be too technical and too high level for the collective genius of the Members of the Upper and Lower Houses. If that is the case, putting it as the responsibility solely of a Minister, albeit with Cabinet approval, creates even bigger problems. The Minister of State is right that the extent of Oireachtas involvement is unprecedented. We did that to make a point. However, the point, which is a very legitimate one, is that the Minister of State has gone too far in the other direction. There is an appropriate role to be given to the Houses of the Oireachtas and appropriate committees. The Minister of State should consider that there were real benefits in the engagements on the national planning framework which was processed through the previous Dáil, notwithstanding the fact that there were no votes, which was one of its weaknesses. There was a level of engagement with that. I know that is more akin to the marine planning framework, but I still believe there is some value in that.

I have a few more responses to the Minister of State's criticisms of our amendments, some of them justifiable. Of course, there will always be technical deficiencies in Opposition amendments. We would be delighted if the Minister of State would second some of his hard-working and expert staff to us at the time for drafting amendments. It would enormously improve the quality of the amendments. However, technical deficiencies can always be dealt with and cleaned up. What is important is the intention of the amendments. I do not accept the Minister of State's contention that "shall have regard to" is the standard in planning legislation. In fact, local authorities must comply with the county development plans. There is a clear difference between the onerous obligation placed on a planning authority with respect to a planning decision based on a county development plan and when a similar decision is appealed to the board and the board has to "have regard to". They are fundamentally different propositions. If "have regard to" is the Government's preference, that is its preference, but the reason we are suggesting having a hierarchy of "comply with" and "have regard to", particularly in the longer amendment which is better worded, is to cater for what happens if there is a conflict between, for example, the appropriate directive and the marine planning framework. If there happens to be a conflict, which gets precedence? The Minister is going to have to make a call as to which he or she must comply with as opposed to have regard to.

There is a genuine concern and we see it with the substitute consent debate. I do not wish to conflate the two, but where there are conflicts between domestic legislation and EU legislation, particularly on issues of environmental protection, inadequately addressing how to process those through the system at the legislative stage can lead to all sorts of difficulties, including the very substantial fines that this Government is paying and the previous Government had to pay in respect of substitute consent related matters.

I forgot to raise something on the interim measures in the first round. First, what the Minister of State said sounds very positive. This amendment is deficiently drafted but the reason it is there is that, as the Minister of State knows, the third recommendation of the committee's pre-legislative scrutiny report was that: "The Government implement interim measures to protect areas of the marine environment given the disparity between the introduction of the proposed legislation and the absence of legislation regulating maritime protected areas". I am more than happy to withdraw that amendment, but perhaps the Minister of State could give us a little more information, if he has it, on the discussions about those interim measures. The committee was strongly of the view that such interim measures would be very important.

I want to ensure, Chairman, that I do not miss any of the points. The Minister of State is consulting his officials. His job is more difficult than ours. We just have to ask the questions while he has to know what the answers are.

With regard to the more limited list of Ministers, it was not my intention to exclude any of the Minister of State's colleagues. I would be happy to amend that on Report Stage and include the entire Cabinet in it, but the Minister of State can see the point we are trying to make. How do we involve the Oireachtas, the Oireachtas committees and all the relevant Ministers? Notwithstanding the technical deficiencies and accidental exclusions of the Minister of State's colleagues, I still believe there is merit in the Minister of State rethinking the role that he is not giving to the Oireachtas. Perhaps some compromise might be forthcoming from the Government between now and Report Stage.

I am sure I have forgotten something but I will come back to it.