Seán Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)

It is ridiculous to divide up responsibility and give the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government responsibility for foreshore licensing. It is not possible to develop a marine policy to deal separately with offshore renewable energy, fisheries and commercial transport. They are all integrated. Our proposal is that the Marine Institute should be the planning authority and should draw up the development plan. It is not possible to draw up a development plan for offshore activities without taking into account all the other activities, including fisheries, ferries and normal commercial traffic on our seas. Here we are, an island nation, dividing responsibility between the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, which mainly deals with onshore activities and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The activities will now be spread all over the place. It makes basic common sense to anybody that when developing a resource - in this case our waters - we should make certain that responsibility for all the activities in that area is in the one place in order to have a co-ordinated plan. This is why the amendment placing a six-month time limit is so important. We cannot afford to wait - we do not have that luxury.

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