Mr. Richard Cronin:

It is a concern I would generally share. It comes down to the quality of the data we get. I would not have any question about people’s scientific integrity. Regarding the quality of the data, the anxiety I have relates to the level of the decision we have to make versus the amount of data we have, in other words, what is the gap between the two. That is the real challenge. As I said in response to an earlier question, we are willing to co-operate with the private sector in the provision of information for us to make decisions at a national level. We have a track record of co-operating with industry, essentially, the private sector, all the time. What is important with respect to the quality of the data is for us to describe clearly what we want measured, the method in which we want it measured and the way in which we can have some assurance or guarantee around that. Those are the key factors. We have programmes in place. I mentioned that at the start of my evidence. We have specific programmes and national monitoring programmes in place. We are also considering, for example, citizen science whereby we can get information from citizens on the state of the marine environment. The key challenge we have in all those programmes is to have the right standard. The right standards will get us good quality information.

The Deputy also asked about the decision-making process. I am not involved in the planning decision-making process but, clearly, whatever information is provided in a decision-making process, the important element is the level of assessment and rigour the decision maker makes in respect of it. I would have certain views on whether we should be comparing the marine space to the land space because one is pretty much two dimensional, it is pretty much flat and goes up 10 m whereas the ocean is three dimensional. Regardless of whether we want to compare the two, we can still condition consents when we decide to do things at sea. We can have a set of performance standards. This relates to the precautionary principle we discussed earlier. If we have a set of concerns that an activity might have a risk associated with it, we can create a set of performance controls on it. We see this all the time. If one is carrying out some sort of seismic survey, one must have certain noise parameters and certain checks and balances in place. We condition activities all the time. Therefore, we have ways of dealing with that as well.