Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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A lot of questions have been asked. I refer to amendment No. 52 and to amendment No. 61 in particular, which also relates to directives. I note that we now have policy statements, guidelines and directives. Before all of that, we have plans. I am trying to understand the relationship between these different things and the precise hierarchy and relationship between them. It is fair to say that with all these different mechanisms for dictating by the Minister - because the Minister has the power to do these things - there seems to be a lot of power and many different avenues provided by the Minister to change things as they as move along. As we will see in the next grouping, there is a requirement to comply with these policy statements, guidelines, and directives, if I understand correctly. We have sought to delete line 35 in the subsequent group of amendments that we will deal with shortly. These mechanisms will be available to the Minister to direct and to give guidelines, that is, issue instructions and give the Minister a hell of a lot of power. One would worry about that sort of arbitrary power being given to the Minister. While we may have great confidence in the Minister of State sitting here in the room with us, who knows what sort of Minister we might have in the future.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan's point is important as well. Rightly and understandably, there is a huge need to address the climate crisis but the biodiversity crisis is not mentioned as often. In fact, when one thinks about it deeply enough, a collapse in ecosystems could probably damage our ability to sustain our existence on this planet sooner than climate change. The collapse of whole ecosystems could have disastrous and unknown consequences, because everything is connected. We all depend on these interconnected chains called ecosystems. The marine, marine life and marine biology are all critical to our existence on this planet. There is a lot at stake, therefore. By requiring public consultation on all of these things, we are ensuring that it will not just be a hell of a lot of power concentrated in the hands of a single Minister but that everybody, including all stakeholders and society generally ,would have a voice in this. The Minister would have to meet many checks and balances in the objectives in developing the marine.