Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is the point. If there is an acceptance, which there certainly seems to be from some of the officials we met yesterday, that we are behind the curve in protecting areas and it is likely to be some time before they are protected, then there is a problem with these legacy projects, which will result in large numbers of giant wind turbines placed very close to the shore along the east coast and other coastal areas that will have significant impacts on fisher, and potentially on marine environment biology, biodiversity and so on. If it will be some years before we designate the marine protected areas, how do we know that these should not be marine protected areas?

Yet we may issue consents for development. We are where we are, to use that horrible phrase, but can interim measures be taken to ensure these should be marine protected areas in advance of the wider requirement to do so, which we understand will take longer? That is the point. It would be a travesty if industrial development consents for these areas are given out and then we discover afterwards they should have been marine protected areas and we have done damage in the meantime. We are asking for interim measures with a focus on those particular sites to ensure they have the proper level of protection before any development consents are given.

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