Mr. Richard Cronin:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. There is a lot to get through so I will take the questions one at a time. The first question was on the expert body and its composition. The thought process behind this is that the power to designate will need to be based on some sort of scientific evidence and an expert scientific body is considered to be the best approach to do that. There is a limited amount of this expertise so we consider that the establishment of this body, with those life science skills, socioeconomic skills and other technical skills that we have set out, is the best way to do it. The Minister will be empowered to appoint that body and it will then be able to allow participation through subordinate working groups. That body will then advise the Minister on designations, processes and procedures, and on issues like management recommendations and monitoring. There are various pieces of advice that have yet to be developed, and they will vary potentially from marine protected area designation proposal to marine protected area designation proposal. That is all I can say in regard to the expert body.

The next question was on the ocean environment policy statement. One of the things we are quite conscious of in the development of this is creating a wider policy context for what the ambitions are for marine protection in a given period. The policy statements are envisaged to be revised at the latest every six years. This will allow us to articulate an overall vision for what we see as being necessary for the health of the ocean but also to set out those legitimate policies around sustainable use for food, energy, recreation, transport, communications, tourism and all of those different policies that are considered necessary, including sustainable use policies. We can then set out a priority for what we want to protect. We have already got scientific information about what is threatened and declining in the Irish marine space so it is question of what will be our primary objectives. Will it be focusing on area coverage or specific and unique ecosystem features, or prioritising areas that might be identified as being suitable for offshore renewable energy in the first instance? We could consider designations on the sensitivity of those areas first, from a biodiversity point of view. We would look at all of those things in a policy statement, as well as mechanisms for participation.