Mr. Eddie Burke:

I will take that question from the start. The citizens piece is mainly affected by the roll-out of electric vehicles and infrastructure. Most of the other issues to do with aviation and maritime concern the larger airports, airlines and shipping companies. There has been consultation at that level. These proposals were published in July, so that was the start of the process. Having said that, some of the proposals are moving quite quickly, as I mentioned. There has been engagement on the maritime side. These proposals were subject to engagement and consultation in advance by the Commission at international level. The Department has engaged with maritime stakeholders looking for preliminary views and, generally, stakeholders are supportive of the ambition. They would prefer to see it being done in an international rather than an EU context, but we are where we are. The EU is the first to step forward and stakeholders accept that.

There are issues to do with the likes of enforcement about which stakeholders have some concerns, such as how where the fuel is coming from is monitored. We have to make sure people are compliant but there are provisions within the regulation to deal with that through verifiers.

I will pass over to Ms O'Brien on the consultations that went on in respect of aviation.