Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes, Chairman, and I thank him very much. I thank Mr. Cronin again for his replies. There are many organisations out there, particularly organisations which track the alarming levels of biodiversity loss and damage both to our natural and marine environment who would take a much more critical view of our marine environmental standards, particularly in areas such as seismic surveys and who is responsible for monitoring and checking compliance with those. Equally, there are other things that matter, like mammal observer rots, etc. There are some very divergent views to those Mr. Cronin has expressed to the committee on some of these things. That is naturally the nature of these types of discussions. I return to the same question because I wish to press it.

When the Minister issues maritime area consents or when the board makes decisions on planning applications for very large offshore marine projects potentially later next year, is Mr. Cronin satisfied there is sufficient information in the public domain to allow the Department, which will be advising the Minister on the awarding of consents or the board on the granting of permission, to make a full assessment of the biodiversity implications of any decision? From memory, the evidence we heard at an earlier stage on the Maritime Area Planning Bill is that there was an indication, which was confirmed by Sustainable Water Network and others, that we do not have a lot of the data we need. This is one of the reasons the designation process had been so delayed. It is not just a matter of the legislation. It is also a matter of the poor data set we have. What is Mr. Cronin's view regarding concerns, particularly on the part of a lot of environmental NGOs, on the state of our marine biodiversity? How do we make sure that as we are granting consents and potentially granting permissions, they are done in a way, during this interim period before we have the designations, that fully protects marine biodiversity and does not consolidate biodiversity loss to date but allows for some of that to progress? Regarding the 30%, my understanding is that it is a spatial 30%. Is Mr. Cronin saying it is not automatically spatial or it is spatial but there are other considerations in that?