Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests to this really important session and thank them for their submissions. We read them in advance and they are really important. Given the time constraints, I am going to be pretty focused. It is great to see that more people are coming on board in relation to the eight-week period of consultation. That has been made very clear. There is a momentum gathering inside and outside the Oireachtas for it. There has been a huge amount of engagement and there are many positive aspects of this legislation which are welcome. I was a director of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company for approximately ten years, so I know a lot about the challenges of a commercial port and harbour.I am a bit tired of this word "flexibility". We cannot be flexible with everybody. Some people have to be disappointed but, hopefully, it will be the people that we should be targeting collectively that will be disappointed. We say we have to be economically and environmentally sustainable, but we cannot tick all the boxes. Let us be honest, and realistic. I am very impressed by this particular block of submissions and am very supportive of it.

I am delighted the Environmental Pillar Network could come in here to discuss the issue of the Aarhus Convention, which is very significant, and the issue of the open access to data. This open access to data in compliance with the Aarhus Convention in terms of public participation and decision making is really important. Will the witnesses talk a little bit about that and about the shortcomings in terms of the heads of Bill in that regard and what more they would like to see?

I would like if some of the other groups could touch on the issue of the compatibility of this proposed legislation in terms of the OSPAR Commission and Natura 2000and our international obligations and the broader network surrounding that. They are two very significant pieces of guidance and of legislation and this needs to be compatible with all of that. We cannot just park aspects of it.

It is important that we keep the focus here on recommendations because the witnesses will be familiar with the pre-legislative scrutiny, PLS, reports from the joint Oireachtas committee. There is a lot of debate and discussion and it is all distilled down to 20 to 40 recommendations. One of the key things I am asking of the witnesses is to crystallise some key recommendations that we should put into this report, if not today then in follow-up correspondence to this committee. That is the most effective way we can focus in this PLS report. This PLS report on this Bill is then cited in the Houses. The witnesses would be doing themselves a service and it would help us and be meaningful for the process if they could do so.