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

I move amendment No. 42:

In page 95, line 33, to delete “damages.” and substitute “damages, but such undertakings shall not be prohibitively expensive.”

The Bill does not treat a maritime area consent, MAC, as being environmental in the same way as a development consent. We are concerned about that. As I said on our earlier amendment, if one does not have a MAC, one cannot do anything. One thing leads on to another. The Government and the officials will say that a MAC only gives a right to occupy. It is, however, also a first step on the road, without which one cannot do anything else that comes afterwards. We are dealing with new legislation and we are in new territory. As one thing can lead onto another, we are not convinced that the assertion that a MAC does not have an environmental impact is necessarily going to be the case. I am not saying that the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, is being disingenuous but we are in new territory. We are setting up a process where we do not quite know how it is going to play out. Therefore, potentially, MACs will have a significant impact and people may wish to challenge the granting of a MAC and take judicial reviews against the granting of a MAC. If they do, they will not get the protection that one would get under the Aarhus Convention for things that are deemed to have an environmental impact, because this Bill does not consider the MAC as having an environmental impact. One would not get those protections and could be screwed, to use a colloquialism, for costs and discouraged from doing it. The Aarhus Convention gives some protection when a person takes a judicial review on the grounds of environmental impact. The amendments we are putting in try to ensure that people are protected against major costs when they seek a judicial review against a decision to grant a maritime area consent, MAC.

Will the Leas-Cheann Comhairle please remind me of the amendments we are discussing?

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