Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 6 February 2018
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Aquaculture Licensing Process: Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
3:30 pm
Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
I want to ask a supplementary question. I have reviewed the transcript of the committee's February 2017 meeting with the witnesses, at which we also we dealt with the matter of Linsfort beach. Unfortunately, the issues that I raised a year ago - ensuring full public access to an application - have not changed as of recent weeks. I will read from the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1997, with which Dr. Beamish will be familiar. It stipulates clearly what must be published in a newspaper advertisement - the name of the applicant, the address, the structures to be used, the species to be cultivated and the location of aquaculture proposed. Is it acceptable that, in this case, the Department worded the application for the applicant and instructed the applicant to state that the site's location would be the shores of Lough Swilly? I made this clear at the previous hearing and was not contradicted. The advertisement of the location that the Department insisted upon related to the shores of Lough Swilly. Did referring to the shores of Lough Swilly rather than Linsfort beach, Buncrana, County Donegal, comply with the legislation and the Department's requirements under it?