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

I move amendment No. 96:

In page 30, to delete line 37.

I am confused by section 19(1) on page 30. It states, "This section shall not apply to a MSP to which Chapter 4applies." Chapter 4 relates to "Laying of certain DMAPs before CPAs", not marine spatial plans, MSPs. Maybe I read it wrongly. It seems to me that it is an error in the Bill. If not, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

On amendment No. 97, I will not repeat the long discussion that we had about the allegedly excessive nature of the Oireachtas oversight, scrutiny and decision-making but I want to make a point. I am not looking to fight the battle we had previously again. The Minister of State has said on a number of occasions and is right that the Oireachtas has an important role to play. The difficulty is that the Oireachtas and its committees are not always of the one mind. Many of us wanted to have a small amount of additional scrutiny of the national marine planning framework. We did not get it. We felt that was a limitation. That is at the discretion of the Government since the Government, unless it is a minority Government, controls a majority of votes when deciding to give time. While I am not in any way questioning the depth of the public consultation on the national marine planning framework, there are organisations that are on public record as having felt that, while they engaged, they were not necessarily listened to. That may or may not be the case. Not everybody can be listened to, heard and have their views incorporated all the time but it is much better if some form of Oireachtas engagement, oversight, scrutiny and decision-making is included for such important plans. I know the Minister of State will not accept this. He does not have to read out the same briefing note he had last time but I urge him to consider some greater level of formalised Oireachtas committee involvement in these developments because it would enhance the process.

When the national planning framework was being developed, the level of Oireachtas involvement was far greater, especially committee involvement. That was probably a reflection of the fact that it was a minority Government and therefore the negotiations with Government partners were different. My feeling as a committee member was that the committee did not have as much engagement with the national marine planning framework as we did with the national planning framework. Setting some of those things out in the context of MSPs and DMAPs in legislation would be a welcome thing for the Minister of State to consider.