Mr. Richard Cronin:

I thank the Chairman for his question. There is evidence that if one changes the pattern of human activities one can have benefits. I believe the Deputy is referring to where if we remove one activity and allow the turbine arrays, and there is no other human activity taking place, we will see biodiversity perhaps returning to either the water or to the seafloor. There is certainly evidence of that. The question then is what is the benefit of that? Does it benefit spillover from the wind array and is that benefit tangible? That goes back to a point I believe I made in the opening statements, which is that there are benefits that can be derived from certain human activities and those benefits can deliver for the environment but also for the economic interests we have in the sea.

The key takeaway I would like the committee to consider is that we should not think about these issues in a binary way, where one has either a decision to site human activity and that leads to irreversible damage or one has a marine protected area which is going to, by default, lead to a total exclusion of human activity. Neither of those may be the case. They may be possible if we do not do things properly, but they should not be where our thinking is. We should adopt a responsible approach to the siting of all human activities and the carrying out and management of that human activity, so that we deliver benefits not only for our economy but also for our environment. We should not adopt a one or the other scenario, it should be both.