Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I have two minutes left and I want to talk about the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA, and An Bord Pleanála for a second. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Burke, on his engagement with this committee during long committee sessions on the Maritime Area Planning Act that we passed last year.

In meeting our emissions targets, it is critical to have that planning framework in place, which we have now for the maritime area. Offshore energy will be critical to us in meeting our energy demands. Energy is so costly now, that when we achieve that energy resilience of having 5 GW of offshore wind in the east and a target of 30 GW over the next decade after that, it puts us on the path of not being dependent on fossil fuels.

It is critical that MARA has the budget to get up and running quickly to do what it is set up to do, and An Bord Pleanála as well. An Bord Pleanála will be judging these planning applications that come in from maritime area planning and it is not something it has dealt with to a huge extent before. Therefore, we need to ensure that An Bord Pleanála is sufficiently staffed and has a specialised maritime planning area office to deal with that. Can the Minister briefly assure me that we are on top of that, as I only have about one minute left?