Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is a significant and incredibly timely motion. I compliment Deputies Connolly and Pringle on giving up the time to have us discuss it.

It is a critical moment for seaweed as a resource, with regard to its development as a potentially sustainable, ecologically sound and environmentally friendly industry. If we get it right, there will be considerable benefits. If we get it wrong, there will be ecological problems and problems for the local communities.

Our record is not really that great. When it comes to hiving off our natural resources - from land to fishery rights to oil and gas - the tradition has been privatise them, open them up to multinationals, flog them off, enrich the middle man and allow the local people to lose out. Against this backdrop and against the backdrop of the proposal in the works for the harvesting licence for 20% of the seaweed from Ballyvaughan to Belmullet to a Canadian company, the concerns are not exaggerated. These are well-founded concerns. It is clear from the evidence elsewhere, in particular in Canada and Norway, that large-scale mechanical harvesting of the kind towards which the Government is leaning is not a sustainable way to go.

We have to start by recognising the very real threat to the livelihoods of traditional harvesters from Bantry Bay and elsewhere, some of whom were in attendance in the Gallery. They have posed legitimate questions for the Government to answer on the lack of regulation and transparency and on the way in which licences have been granted.

The Bantry Bay example is, sadly, a good one in the sense that it is so bad. BioAtlantis was given the right to harvest a 1,860 acre area over a ten-year period in the absence of any consultation with the local community. That licence includes a clause which allows the company to self-assess the environmental impact. You could not make it up. The assessment does not even kick in until three years have passed and, at that point, the company has the right to self-assess the impact. That is completely ridiculous given the importance of seaweed to our ecosystem and the number of species reliant on it for food. I question the manner in which the Government has gone about this because, as with the offshore exploration licence it handed out last year, long-term licences that tie us into commitments we may regret are, frankly, irresponsible. Nevertheless, the Government is doing it again. In effect, we are giving a private enterprise the right to plunder natural resources at a profit, which is far too risky for the Irish people.

There is a difference between harvesting and extraction. In many ways, the seaweed industry exemplifies that difference. Extraction involves the removal of raw materials from the planet and is, in many cases, a dirty and damaging process which must be managed closely. On the other hand, traditional seaweed harvesting in Ireland takes place after the tide has receded. The crop is yielded manually and the harvesters make sure to leave a good proportion of the plant behind undamaged so that it can regrow. It is a win-win. The mechanical process, however, is not only potentially damaging to seaweed, it depletes the stock, affects the life-cycle of some types of seaweed and, therefore, other sea life. It is illustrative that Marine Scotland had the good sense to conduct an environmental impact assessment which clearly found that artisanal manual harvesting is far less damaging. While there is always a small risk in any approach, it is clear to Marine Scotland that the mechanised harvesting of kelp has significant adverse effects. Given that seaweed and sea grasses play a huge role in marine and coastal ecosystems and that some species actually modify their environment to support high levels of marine and coastal diversity, they are described as "ecosystem engineers". That is what they are. As such, we need to monitor them careful and that is particularly so for kelp.

Seaweed products are becoming more popular, with some being promoted for their health and other properties. There is a rising demand for these products, which is very good in many ways. However, we have to balance the demand for seaweed with how we harvest and use it. This is not just about healthy food. If we increase seaweed removal from our coast to use it to produce supplements which aid intensive pig farming, which in and of itself has adverse environmental costs, we must conclude that it is not worth it. We must look at this holistically and monitor it carefully. We must protect the traditional methods and this vitally important resource in a transparent manner for the benefit of the Irish people, not foreign multinationals.

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