Mr. Richard Cronin:

I would seek to ensure we carry out an appropriately rigorous environmental assessment. Regardless of whether we do that under the environmental impact assessment directive or under any other decision-making process, the right thing to do would be to ensure we have the right amount of information. If we do not have the right amount of information to hand at that time, we must ensure we rely on the principles that underpin our decision-making, for example, the precautionary principle, the prevention of pollution at source principle or the polluter pays principle. We should also use the best available technology. We should adopt all those approaches to ensure we provide the maximum mitigation to protect the marine environment.