Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Nash for sharing time. I will read into the record some of the contents of an email I received on Monday from a Mr. Justin Moran of Wind Energy Ireland in respect of its concerns about the foreshore aspects of this Bill.

Our industry is concerned that the effect of what is proposed will be to slow the development of renewable energy and undermine efforts to deliver the legally binding carbon emissions reductions required by the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. This is because the Act, by widening the definition of the foreshore to include the water column above the seabed, will now require any project wishing to carry out non-invasive geophysical survey activity in the water above the foreshore to obtain a Foreshore Site Investigation Licence to do so, even though this activity is already regulated by the National Parks & Wildlife Service.

Since it is taking more than 2 years to get such a licence the actual effect of this Act will be to block any new geophysical survey activity by renewable energy projects until the establishment of the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority in Q2 of 2023. We lose time, when we have none to lose.

Mr. Moran goes on to state that he is writing to me to ask me and, by inference, the Minister to support the recommendation contained in the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage's pre-legislative scrutiny report on the general scheme of the Bill. The relevant quote from that report is:

The Committee recommends that the Department obtain and publish expert legal advice and stakeholder consultation, namely, with marine environmental stakeholders, the fishing community, and the offshore renewable energy industry, so as to inform the provision of safeguards in respect of the amendment in Head 9 of the General Scheme.

The email, which I am sure the Minister has, and he certainly has been made aware of it, goes on to state:

As part of our submission to the Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the Bill we requested a legal opinion on the General Scheme which was provided by Arthur Cox and which was given to the committee. I would be happy to share it with you ... [etc.]

The legal opinion states:

We expect that the rationale behind this is to facilitate the licencing of geophysical surveys which take place in the water column. However, it is not clear why such surveys require regulation, as part of the foreshore licensing process, when those surveys are already regulated by another process.

That is the question Wind Energy Ireland is asking. If we had some response to that in reply to this debate, we would be grateful. The email goes on to state:

This makes it all the more confusing that a Bill is being advanced to amend the Foreshore Act to regulate an already regulated form of survey activity when it will slow the development of offshore wind energy which will serve only to increase carbon emissions and our dependency on imported fossil fuels.

We need MARA to succeed but we want the processes now to be such that they are streamlined and do not create any impediment to the development of offshore wind so as to increase the potential for energy independence on this island. That is ultimately what this email is about.

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