Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Is it the Government's intention to save the whale in the North Atlantic or to save the oil and gas industry? The Department has commissioned the ObSERVE programme with significant funding of €2.7 million to monitor the presence of whales, dolphins and sea birds in the area. Is that done with the intention of excluding areas from exploration or from seismic testing, which is known to have an effect on such wildlife populations? Or is it to help and support the oil and gas exploration industry, which in my mind we should be exiting and divesting from rather than investing in long term and is what I fear behind this programme?

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