Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I apologise in advance to our witnesses if I repeat questions asked earlier. I was in the Dáil. We are behind the curve on designating marine protected areas compared to many other European countries and are playing catch up. How does Mr. Cronin envisage us dealing with the legacy projects in terms of large offshore wind turbine proposals? How do we address the problem of a site that was inappropriate for such a development being designated as a marine protected area too late and the damage has been done?

Does Mr. Cronin agree that if we were approaching this correctly, we would have the marine protected areas designated first and we would have identified areas where such large industrial development is suitable, in advance of our issuing consents for development that could potentially be bad for biodiversity, marine life or for other reasons?

My office staff have been watching proceedings and one of them informs me that Mr. Cronin indicated that 60% of our coastal zone is already designated. She may have misheard but will he clarify that figure? How does the coastal zone relate to the new designations of near shore and beyond near shore? What are we talking about in that regard? A coverage of 60% seems a lot for any area unless it is a very small area.

Given that we are behind the curve, to what extent does Mr. Cronin think the precautionary principle needs to operate in terms of what we allow in advance of having the full, comprehensive designation of MPAs? I ask that he pardon me if I am being ignorant in asking how candidate areas are selected in advance of their potential designation. How is it decided which are candidate areas for protection and is there already a process in train for selecting those areas?