Mr. Bernard Nolan:

There were several questions, so I apologise if I miss some of them. I ask the Senator to alert me if I do. I am not 100% sure, but I believe a further version of the general scheme of the Bill was published. That included changes to formatting and corrections of errata, but no substantial changes. We have not drafted a fresh version to reflect the major changes in policy development that have happened in the course of drafting. We have identified the major changes in the answers to frequently asked questions.

Several members of the committee referred to the scale of the Bill. Thanks to sterling work by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the eventual legal text will be a far shorter and more concise document than the general scheme. It will be able to do many things which we thought would require specific provisions. Our hope and intention is for the eventual legal text to be much shorter, more concise and more legible. I think everyone will be happy to hear that.

On consultation, I reiterate that there is consultation on strategic marine activity zones, in respect of their designation and in the strategic environmental assessment. There will, therefore, probably be consultation on the double within that process for different purposes. Regarding the maritime area consent, there are good reasons for there not being consultation within that process, mainly concerning what is under consideration at that stage in the process. There simply will not be that much meaningful information.

The questions people will ask will be specific, such as about the visual impact of a development, the impact on a certain species and the pollution impact. That level of information will not be available until the environmental assessments are done, until there is a detailed project design and until the complete application is made to An Bord Pleanála. It is at that point that the most meaningful consultation can happen, as well as the appropriate environmental assessment. As I mentioned, however, we have a pre-application process, which happens before the MAC, to try to draw out at the earliest possible stage what those potential issues will be.