Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I have a related question. This gets to the nub of it. If we got clarity on this we could move through this Bill much more quickly. Is it correct that these directives would require that before consents for development are given, the directives are fully complied with, which is what Europe wants, and then we can move to the issue of applications, consents, enforcement and all the rest of it but in the first instance we must have a plan, which must be compliant with the various directives? Rightly or wrongly, we have a concern that there may be development consents given where those plans are not fully in place. In particular, the relevant projects could get consents when plans are not in place. How would that stand in respect of the directives? That is one of our central concerns and one of the central concerns of people looking in here. If we could get clarity, it would help. Have people reason to be concerned? The ideal would be to have the marine plan, which is similar to a development plan. We know what can be done here and there and people will only be allowed do things in those places. Once this is up and running fully that might be the way it is going to be but in advance of that people do not necessarily have to be subject to a plan. If that is the case then that is our concern. Clarity on that would help us a lot.