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

I strongly support amendments Nos. 130 and 131. While I understand the Minister of State may not be able to, or believes he cannot, specify all the details about who might be on the board, he will understand that our major concern is that State actors have certain objectives. That is not to in any way impugn the representatives of Departments, but civil society representatives and experts need to be hardwired into this process and the establishment of a potentially powerful body, which will deal with a huge area of our marine territory. We need people who are really expert. Departmental officials may or may not be expert, but we need people we know are expert and we need some representatives of the stakeholders we know will be affected by this. We know the fishing industry is going to be affected. This is critical. I hope the Minister of State will indicate that he accepts our general proposition, or the proposition behind these amendments, and that he will consider wording in the legislation that would, without being absolutely prescriptive, give us assurances that civil society representatives, expert voices and key stakeholders will be included on the board.