Mr. P?draic Fogarty:

I will take a point about OSPAR and Natura 2000. OSPAR has been with us for a long time but does not have any teeth so there is no legislative backing to what comes out of OSPAR. Natura 2000 obviously has strong legislative backing. Some of the language in the Bill is familiar to us from the habitats directive, but other areas are not so familiar. I will highlight one particular area around head 11 that states the designation of a marine protected area should not preclude appropriate development in that area. However, there is no mechanism to decide what is appropriate development and who decides what is an appropriate development. Under head 14, it statess the authorised authority can give permission and under 5(2) it states "if no reasonable alternative solutions exist." That is basically carte blanchefor a planning authority to give permission to a development within a marine protected area. At least in the habitats directive we have strong language and a body of case law to decide those mechanisms. We do not want to be doubling up on procedures and language that already exist in the habitats directive. However, there may be an opportunity to streamline and carry forward some of the language we are familiar with into this Bill and give us certainty to how projects and MPAs are going to be assessed, and who is going to assess them.