Mr. Niall Goodwin:

Yes, that is it. It is a matter of clarity and being able to identify those areas as quickly as possible so that we know that they are areas that cannot be developed. That is very important and that can only be done by information gathering and knowing what is out there. Part of this might come from the developer-led aspects in terms of when they survey the areas and pick up information. That governance point is really important, as was mentioned by Dr. Griffin and others.

We want this Bill to be able to achieve what it is setting out to achieve, which is to reach that 30% MPA designation, a European goal that we want to transpose here. This Bill should allow us to achieve that. It will mean really tightening up some of the definitions, legal provisions and what exactly the Bill is asking for. It must be absolutely clear in getting us towards that target. We would support a lot of what has been said about enforcement, clarity of roles and effective enforcement of the MPAs once they are identified. That is crucial.

Reference was made to the National Parks and Wildlife Service, an agency we tend to raise at these committee hearings quite a lot. We consider it to be a particularly underfunded State entity. It was allocated some additional funds in the last budget but in order to be able to do what it should do and fulfil its duties, it needs a lot more resources. While that may not be directly related to the legislation we are discussing today, if this committee could recommend that the Government consider increasing the funding to the NPWS, we would all welcome that. It would help with the overall implementation and enforcement of this and other environmental legislation that is so crucial for our development of renewables, both onshore and offshore. That is vital.

I think I have answered all of the questions but perhaps my colleagues would like to contribute.