Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Before Ms Loughran comes in, I have a question, which Ms Loughran may also respond to. From what the witnesses are saying in general, am I correct that some of the difficulties of the Bill are that it is not clear and while it lists a lot of different things, it is not clear that they must be done; that the Bill should be framed in a clear way that creating marine protected areas is about conservation and an ecologically coherent network of marine protected areas delivering good environmental status; and that this should be absolutely clear in driving the Bill throughout? Instead, while the Bill is about marine protected areas, it is not clear that it is actually about that. In a best-case scenario with this Bill, if everything goes right, it is well resourced, we have good Ministers and everybody is interested, it may work well. It may not, however, and it may just be legislation where areas are getting designated as MPAs but that will not ensure we are designating the right areas or that we are doing the conservation.

In other words, what we need to achieve with this legislation may not be done if it passes in its current format. Is that a fair summary?