Mr. Richard Cronin:

On the siting of wind farms and MPAs, I made the point earlier that it is not necessarily the case that we cannot have co-existence. As I said in my opening remarks, we can have that. In line with best international practice, MPAs exist in other European countries and around the world where human activities co-exist with the conservation objective. When a decision is made to create an MPA for the specific reason of conserving something in the sea, it is possible to allow human activity that does not have an effect on that conservation status. The idea of co-existence is very important for all of us to think about when we are considering what an MPA is. I always encourage people to finish the sentence when they say they want an MPA and specify why they want it. This helps us to understand whether a particular human activity interferes with that objective.

The Deputy asked whether there is likely to be something already in the legacy projects that may require protection. When a detailed site investigation takes place, a lot of scientific information is gathered in the process of creating an environmental assessment and doing the other appropriate assessments. A great deal of data are gathered in all of that process, which then feed into the decision on whether a consent can be given. It is not a case of somebody taking out a map and saying, "I would like to put it here and off you go." There is a detailed process that goes on behind all of that.

The Deputy asked whether we are putting the cart before the horse on this issue or shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. As I said in reference to some of the evidence I provided, it would be preferable to have started this work a number of years ago. We must remember, however, that Ireland has a very low level of economic activity in our marine space. Apart from transport and fisheries, there is very little other activity taking place beyond the first nautical mile. The real risk is quite low outside of those well-defined activities that are already happening.

In my earlier reference to different parts of our marine space already having a lot of designated areas, I was referring to the publication last year by the European Environment Agency highlighting the distance to 30% MPA coverage across the Union. I can provide the Chairman with the reference. The document breaks down each member state's marine space to the first nautical mile, that is, from the high water mark out to 1 nautical mile, which is the space to which I was referring. We have those designations done under the birds and habitats directive. The document also gives information on how much of the space from 1 to 12 nautical miles is designated, as well as for the area from 12 nautical miles out to the end of the exclusive economic zone. In that third space, from 12 miles out, Ireland has very low levels of designation. That was the specific reference I was making and I can provide the information to the committee.

The Deputy referenced the precautionary principle. In my comments, I mentioned the EU policies and principles, the precautionary principle being one we use all the time. We are very conscious of having enough information to make a good decision, which does not mean we should make no decision if we do not have enough information. In the exercise of the practice of this, we are very conscious, for example, of the likely risk of there being some harm caused that is irreversible or that would go against the broader conservation ambition we have around either a species or broader biodiversity concerns.

If I have missed any point, I ask the Deputy to come back to me. His final question was about candidate areas. In a previous answer, I mentioned that we already have a well-established list, which I will provide to the committee, of threatened and declining species, known as the OSPAR list, that are outside the EU directives. It is a long list of more than 50 species and habitats that occur all across the north-east Atlantic, a sub-portion of which are found in the Irish marine space. We know what we need to protect and we have information about where it is. As set out in the recently published climate action plan, we also have an awareness that the ocean plays a key role in mitigating the effects of climate change. It is our understanding that there are natural carbon habitats both on the coastline and possibly in deeper sediments that are not yet being given any protection. We know where they are from the mapping programmes we have. In our view, they could become candidates. What we do not yet have in place is a process for setting up the criteria, bringing stakeholders along with us and creating the designation process. That is the purpose of the new legislation we hope to draft and we see a key part of it as bringing in the views of all stakeholders, who are the people who will end up managing this for us. Without their willingness to manage, it will be difficult for us to do it for such a vast area. We need to bring them with us on this. That legislation, and how we design the processes provided for in it, will be key to our success.