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

The Minister of State accepted the last amendment in this vein. The logic is clear in our seeking to put in "coexistance" instead of "colocation". The thinking behind this proposed amendment is informed by an ecosystem approach. Can things survive together in the same area without a significant impact on ecosystems and on biodiversity? Could a particular type of development in a particular area have a negative impact on other things we seek to protect and preserve? We do not want an imperative in this Bill to colocate, for example, liquefied natural gas, LNG, terminals with a marine protected area. We have to have both. We want coexistance that guarantees the continuation of vital ecosystems, marine biology, and livelihoods that might be made in that area by particular groups. That is the logic behind the proposed amendment. The Government accepted this in a previous amendment. Maybe the Government can indicate that it is going to do so again.

On the known knowns, the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns, that is vaguely humorous on one level. However, it is quite serious on another level. I am still unclear on this, but it seems that anybody, or at least quite a few people, can do a DMAP. These people might want to do a DMAP for very different reasons. I am concerned and confused about that. What is the objective of that particular DMAP? If, for example, a Department is particularly concerned about developing industrial offshore wind, that would be its objective. It would want to do a DMAP to facilitate that. However, that could have significant knock-on impacts for heritage, for protecting fishers’ livelihoods, for impacts on the local community, for marine biodiversity, and so on. The lead body would have a particular objective. In that context, arguably, it might not have a hell of a lot of interest in filling in the gaps on the known unknowns or, even more so, the unknown unknowns that are not set out in the national marine planning framework or that sort of detailed knowledge of a particular marine environment.

We are trying to get an acknowledgement that those known unknowns, and even more so the unknown unknowns, are often things that are only known by people who really live and operate in the area and thus have knowledge and experience of a particular marine environment, whereas a Department that has the objective to do a particular thing may not know any of that stuff and would have gaps in its knowledge. Therefore, we want it written into legislation that before we decide that such a body is going to do the DMAP because it has a particular objective, we want to know the following. First, what is its objective, on which there would be consultation. It should not just be up to the Minister to say a body can do the DMAP. Second, we want an acknowledgement, as part of the decision-making process, of what we do not know and have to find out before we make a decision about whether a particular body is competent and whether its objectives are acceptable and appropriate for this particular marine environment.