Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the members for their questions. There was a question on meaningful participation and consultation with various groups. I have been very clear about what we have embarked on with the birth of the national marine planning framework and it being absolutely best-in-class practice. It is genuinely disappointing to hear suggestions this is tokenistic.

One can look at appendix B. I noted references to developers and major initiators of offshore renewable energy projects but I can look through the list of people working on the advisory group. There are six or seven different bodies related to fisheries or seaweed harvesting. These are all people from the smallest boathouse to the largest renewable energy project and they were facilitated through our advisory group and participation. I am genuinely a little taken aback by the suggestion that what we were doing was not best in class because it is and has been.

There was mention of "all reasonable measures" but we have been in a pandemic. We can see that halfway through the consultation it had to go online. That was in May 2020 for the advisory group in the first instance and, in the second instance, for the consultation event. It was reasonable to have an event online to bring as many people as possible together. It was a reasonable measure to try to keep people safe and ensure we met obligations for consultation and to those who are participating. I had the privilege to chair a number of sessions of the advisory group, where I heard from and saw a screen full of people from every sector around the country. It was absolutely incredible. I can say to members that I have experienced this and because of that I know the process was robust. It was the best I have seen in terms of consultation and participation.

There was a reference to the competent authority and it is clear in section 15 that the Minister shall be the competent authority. That is in black and white.

The public participation statement is the birth of the process. It will be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and it will be for committees like this one to get involved and try to feed its own ideas into the process, as it has done in the past. I respectfully say that this would lead to valuable contributions to the process, which is what we want. Pages 29 and 30 of the Bill outline compliance and what is included in the public participation statement.