Malcolm Noonan (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister's comments on the nuclear industry but I will be writing to him and to the Taoiseach about the damning report on the Sellafield reprocessing plant. I ask him to engage with his counterparts on that.

On the issue of turf cutting, it is industrial strip mining and it is important that the resources are front loaded to the local authorities to deal with this once and for all. It is doing huge damage to the environment but it is also damaging from a carbon perspective and in trying to meet our targets.

In relation to the MPAs, it is disappointing that we are moving into the DMAPs approach with it. We had made significant progress on the MPA legislation under the Minister's leadership in his previous role and the work we did together. There is a €24 million MPA LIFE project attached to it. A lot of the public engagement has been done and there was a novel element in the MPA Bill around public participation. I do not think the DMAPs approach is the correct way to do it and would have serious concerns about that.

One thing I looked at when we were running into trouble with the MPA legislation was the possibility of amending the existing Wildlife Act to designate marine natural heritage areas. That would get us there quicker and could achieve the same objective. We could include regulations around the public participation and engagement piece. I ask the Minister to have a look at that option to see if it is possible. I think it would get us to where we need to be a lot more quickly and it would be a much more inclusive and expansive process. My concern about the DMAPs process is that it is largely focused on offshore renewables. We have to see our marine space for its carbon sequestration function, its blue carbon value, which is critically important. This is not just about marine biodiversity. Protecting our marine biodiversity has carbon benefits as well. It also has benefits in terms of spillover, in that fish species and other features are protected. That might be a better way forward.