Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

I accept the principle of this Bill, which is to divide the responsibility for aquaculture and other matters relevant to the marine between the Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. However, I must point out to the Tánaiste that the country has lost serious amounts of investment because this has been dragged out for so long. The Bill only gives effect to the separation; it does not deal with the expedition of titles and licensing thereafter. Nor does it take into consideration the introduction by the all-party Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security, chaired by Deputy Seán Barrett, of the very good offshore renewable energy development Bill 2009.

I listened to the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, talking about 80,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector. This is an area of real potential, but we have messed around for too long. While I accept the principle of the Bill, I object to the guillotine. This is not how we should do our business. We have lost considerable investment in pilot wave-testing schemes and so on due to the lack of action on this issue.

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