Mr. Eoin Leahy:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. To add a little on the way we designate marine area consents, we do not do this on an exclusive basis. We designate the marine area consents for a specific use and that does not preclude another use of the space. An example of this could be a wind farm. We could designate a marine area consent for the wind farm but there would be a separate marine area consent for the cable connecting that farm to the shore. The consenting process does not exclude other activities from happening within that space.

To respond to one of the Deputy's last points, I personally visited a wind farm and my colleague, Ms Brien, has also done so. We have a programme where we are encouraging the staff of MARA to go and actively visit them. I was at one in Nantes last year in France and it was interesting to see the coexistence there, with tourist vessels, wind farms, fishing and wildlife all in the same space.