Ms Laura Brien:

In general, a marine area consent is required before going for planning permission for anything, whether that is a port expansion, building a marina or building an offshore renewable plant. The marine area consent is really about the right to occupy a certain area of the maritime space. The main process is that people who are interested in carrying out any type of development come first to MARA for the MAC, and once they hold the MAC, they can progress through the planning process. For anything development related, they need to have a MAC before they go into planning.