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

If the analogy with NPHET is not perfect, I take the Minister of State's point. However, the broad thrust of what I am saying is that we would not like to think that people whose responsibility is to protect the marine environment do not have, as a matter of course, expertise in the marine environment, marine biology and EU law, including EU directives. We are in uncharted territory. We made many mistakes in respect of planning on land over the years. It has taken a long time to address this and there is still a long way to go to get it right. Let us get on the right foot with this extremely important legislation and this undertaking whose aim is to plan for, develop and protect our marine environment. The thrust of these excellent amendments is to ensure that people who really know their stuff and are to some degree independent of the Department will be included. It is not an unfair comment or a criticism of departmental officials to say they are constrained. They have certain objectives for their Departments and so on. Having people who are independent and who have expertise is critical. I do not understand why the Minister of State would object to this. He has not really commented on the use of the phrase “if any” in his amendment.

In addition to departmental officials and county or city managers, there could potentially be no members with the sort of expertise or knowledge that our amendments are seeking to capture. Our proposal is fair and reasonable and I do not see the argument for imbalance or anything of that kind. This is a positive addition to the composition of the board.