Mr. Richard Cronin:

Yes, certainly. We have had a lot of feedback on people being made aware. That is what we would call education or citizen engagement. Those are the terms we use. It is about how we inform the public about what we are doing. That is on the ground, on site, but also as we go through the process. At the moment, we have a number of citizen engagement initiatives which we do for things like marine litter where we give ownership, more or less, of the local area which is stewarded by the local community and we fund that as part of our programme of work. We see that a similar approach could be adopted here. We see a good template for engagement. Dr. Ó Cadhla mentioned the issue of nature-based solutions. Again, if you have local communities which are aware of the value of the environment and you provide the resources to them to steward it, and there will be a need for resources, you get their support because the system recognises their involvement in the seascape. There is still a huge opportunity for things such as signboards and notice boards.

It is certainly something one would notice is much more prevalent in other member states. For information, and it is not certain yet, we are finalising an application for EU funding to deliver much of the MPA work. We are hoping we will get it but, again, we do not control the decision-making process. Part of the description of the work we want to do in the delivery of MPAs is a very significant module on communications. This involves explaining, engaging, talking - not talking at but talking with - and delivering this on a regionalised basis; not from the centre out, but being out where the people involved in the sea are.