Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

We are discussing licensing and I beg the Leas-Chathaoirleach's indulgence to wade with me a little further into deeper waters because the issue all comes back to licensing. I should have adverted to the introduction by my colleague, Senator Cummins. I grew up with this and have seen the difficulty of licensing and coastal zone management. If we want to discuss the wider area of planning permissions in rural Ireland, of which my colleague Senator McCarthy will be well aware, coastal zone management affects not just the sea and how we develop it, but the land too. A planning application was once refused because the development would be seen from Garnish Island. There are major issues here.

To go beyond that there is the question of where we go in the future. There is an aquaculture and mariculture licensing authority but there are so many layers that I am worried that unintentionally we might have a problem with the development and expansion of mariculture, not alone in Bantry Bay but throughout the area, wherever licensing is required. I am very concerned that without the appropriate amendment proposed by Senator Cummins, we might lose the run of ourselves and have unintentional consequences in future. I might ask the Minister to elaborate on this later. I have serious worries about that. I must apologise for being, as we say in West Cork, beagánín leadránach, but I have a great interest in this area. There is some merit in what my good friend and colleague Senator Cummins has proposed.