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

I fully support Deputy Ó Cathasaigh. As the Minister of State knows, this is an issue that we have raised regularly in the committee. "Frustrating" is probably an understatement. We were led to believe at an earlier stage that the legislation was nearly ready to go at the end of last year. Now, we are hearing that it has not even been completed. Even if it is published before Christmas, it will not be passed until next year. We then have a year to two years for the designation process.

All the while, there will be efforts to progress much-needed offshore wind energy. The consequence of the lag between the planning regime for offshore wind and marine protected areas is the potential for conflict, judicial review and much avoidable delay. This is an area in which there is a lot of cross-party consensus for getting this done. I ask the Minister and Minister of State to publish this as early as possible so we can start getting to the serious work of getting it through the committee and the Oireachtas. Otherwise, there will be delays in the delivery of offshore wind, damage to our marine protected areas and, as Deputy Ó Cathasaigh rightly pointed out, what could be a success story about the revitalisation of our fishing communities could be undermined. I ask the Minister of State to please work with us on this matter and get it through to the House as quickly as possible.

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