Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish to say that there was very good engagement at committee level on this legislation. During that process we sought a number of written clarifications on a number of matters, which we were looking for in advance of Report Stage. It is regrettable that the commitments in written clarifications never came forward and we did not receive them.

The previous speakers made some very good points. There is an urgent need for renewable wind energy and a marine planning framework. To facilitate that, and indeed other activities in our marine area, there is an urgent need for a review of the national marine planning framework, which is what this amendment is about. We can have renewable wind energy while also urgently protecting our marine biodiversity. The strong concern I have is around the slowness in designating the marine protected areas. The briefing that we got yesterday at the meeting of the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage confirmed that we effectively will not be seeing a huge amount of progress on marine protected areas getting designated and being put in place probably until 2025, according to the current timescale. That means we are going to have a lot of active consents, without first properly identifying the areas of the marine that need to be protected. That allows for the possibility of significant damage taking place. The commitment in the programme for Government for marine protected areas to form 30% of Ireland's maritime area is a very positive one, but getting that implemented as quickly as possible is absolutely key.

There are two points that I wish to raise about this amendment, in particular. First, if we are not going to have marine protected areas in place quickly enough and at the same time as this planning framework, which is what should be happening but it looks like it is not going to happen, there is an urgent need for interim measures and protections to be put in place to ensure that in granting consents, areas that need to be protected but which are not yet designated as marine protected areas are protected, and that the marine life biodiversity and so forth are properly protected. That is urgently needed. Perhaps the Minister of State can address that point, in particular. What is going to be done in terms of putting in place interim measures and protections until we have a full network of marine protected areas fully designated?

The second part of the amendment which I think is particularly important is around section 6, which concerns the urgent review of the national marine planning framework to ensure compliance with Articles 17, 10 and 11 of the marine strategy framework directive, Articles 16 and 17 of the habitats directive and Article 10 of the birds directive and, particularly, to assess its compliance with the latest Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report. I think that is particularly important. Doing that would provide some level of protection pending the full designation of the marine protected areas. I ask the Minister of State to address, in particular, what is going to be done to put in place interim measures and protections pending the full designations.

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