Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important part of the Bill and we were very keen to get to have this brief discussion because it is a significant change to the Foreshore Act. It is important to remember that this legislation is about 90 years old, from 1933, and for all of those 90 years people were working on the basis of an understanding of the definition of the foreshore which, it subsequently transpires, is not completely articulated in the original legislation. I think the concern we have and want to express here is that, because of the accelerated nature of this legislation's passing, this is something we have had very little chance to discuss. I think most of us are comfortable with what the Government intends to do here. Our big concern is about unintended consequences. Unusually, when we were undertaking pre-legislative scrutiny of this, both the environmental NGOs and the offshore wind industry lobby had very significant concerns and we did not have adequate time to tease out those concerns to ensure that what was being proposed and potentially agreed did not have those unintended consequences. Part of the purpose of this amendment is to resolve some of those unintended consequences. All I will say to the Minister of State is that when we take these very significant decisions, even when it is just cleaning up outdated and poorly drafted legislation from 90 years ago, doing it in five or ten minutes late in the evening is not a good way to proceed, particularly when the Minister of State's line Minister denied the opportunity to conclude the PLS adequately before the Bill was published. I therefore support Deputy O'Callaghan in his amendment and urge the Minister of State in future to give us more time to consider these things because they are of very significant importance, not just to the protection of our foreshore but to inshore fishermen, coastal communities and sustainable, well-planned and well-delivered offshore wind energy.

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