Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

My position on this is that the Bill should be explicit in terms of the Minister and compliance with the maritime spatial planning directive and the marine strategy directive. This matter is not covered in section 31. I appreciate that the Government must comply with all EU directives, but that does not always happen in full. Indeed, fines have been paid over non-compliance. The Bill is much weaker for not having this explicit provision and there could be consequences to that. We have been slow in following these directives and have not been following them strongly enough. That is evident in how far behind other countries we are due to our slow approach to marine protected areas and how it has not been prioritised and resourced as it should be.