Michael McCarthy (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, to the House. The previous speaker referred to aquaculture licences. I intended to raise the same issue on the Adjournment last week, but I withdrew the matter when the debate on the National Asset Management Agency Bill 2009 continued into the early hours of the morning. I decided that the presence in the Chamber of those of us who had to be here was sufficient without bringing other people in unnecessarily. I thank the Minister of State and his officials for compiling and making available to me the text of the reply that would have been read into the record of the House last week.

I thank the staff of the Oireachtas research and library service for providing Senators with an extensive and informative debate pack on this legislation which deals with quite a technical area. While it might seem like an innocuous and straightforward Bill, I have a number of concerns that I would like to scrutinise in greater detail at the various legislative stages.

I refer to a 1997 document, Coastal Zone Management - A Draft Policy for Ireland, in the context of what has been said about foreshore issues. It is significant that the document was issued by the then Departments of the Marine and Natural Resources and Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands. Page 12 of the document, which relates to the development of the foreshore, states that some of the legislative framework is out of date and inadequate to the task at hand. It refers to the Foreshore Acts as an example of legislation that requires review and suggests that a major review of the Acts is planned. The document argues that the system illustrates the difficulty of administering the coastal zone and highlights the need for a more integrated approach. In my view, not much progress has been made since that document was published in 1997, despite the long series of publications and debates in the meantime. It is like Seanad reform. It has been the elephant in the room for too long without any action being taken for whatever reason.

I note that some sections of the Bill allow for the transfer of certain responsibilities from the Department to the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. This chips away at responsibility. We do not have a department of the marine and therefore do not have an integrated co-ordinated strategy on marine issues. I have made this point consistently. Many different aspects of marine are being dealt with by separate Departments, including the Departments of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, and Transport. The Ministers in all those Departments have introduced legislation into this House or have made statements on those areas. It is not good not to have a joined-up and cohesive strategy on the marine. Some time ago when the Tánaiste, Deputy Coughlan, was asked a question on the marine, she turned around and did not know which Minister had responsibility for that issue. Invariably the marine will suffer from the lack of joined-up thinking and a cohesive co-ordinated integrated approach to the marine.

Senator O'Donovan mentioned that the Federation of Irish Fishermen and the Irish Fishermen's Organisation attended this morning's meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. It was startling to listen to the very immediate issues that challenge not just the industry but also coastal communities across the country. It is inappropriate not to have a single Minister with Ministers of State in a dedicated Department. I am obviously very cognisant of the economic difficulties we face and the different recommendations for cuts in various services. Proposing the creation of a new Department is probably not as worthwhile as it might have been a year or two ago. None the less expanding the role of quangos and organisations that are not inherently accountable is not appropriate.

This is an elected Assembly, albeit with 11 lucky people, one of whom will be making a contribution shortly and another of whom is chairing proceedings. The other House is an elected forum. All our local authorities are elected by the people. We have a public duty responsibility to represent issues brought to our attention and raise issues of concern to our sectoral interests, communities and society as a whole. That is a fundamental part of our democracy and something we cherish and value. We built a modern democracy, opposing the alternative to what we have now. In many ways adding to the role of bodies such as the EPA chips away at the responsibility of the democratic system. It also takes from the full impact of our democratic roles.

Most Members of this House will have had experience of trying to deal with the NRA or HSE. In my case I ask colleagues in the Dáil to table parliamentary questions on issues affecting people in my area. I will give one example. While it is not marine-related, it emphasises the point I am making about the deliberate strategy of quangos and organisations taking from our role as public representatives. Applications for medical cards for the over 70s are now being dealt with by the HSE in Finglas. A person in Skibbereen supplied information last June and as recently as last month got a letter from the HSE stating the information was never passed on. Previously such applications were handled by a local democratic body by the superintendent of community welfare, who was based in the town, knew the applicant and the system, and could deal in a very effective and efficient manner. The superintendent could deal with my representation and I would get a response within two, three or four days. However, we are now dealing with faceless bureaucracy based as far away from west Cork as it is possible to get. That breaks the connection between elected representatives and people on the ground.

This Bill is another example and in many ways mirrors some of the aspects of the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Bill that was passed during the last session in this House. It creates a body or adds to the role of a body that is not accountable and is not as accessible to the ordinary people as we are or as ordinary Departments are.

While wind energy is a great notion and there is considerable debate on the issue, there are many other issues in that regard which require as much forensic examination as other issues that are more widely known about. We need the statutory involvement of local authorities. With normal planning applications there is an opportunity for ordinary members of the public to make their observations on the planning application known. They can approach public representatives who have an involvement - albeit a limited reserved involvement - in the planning process with local authorities. None the less it keeps open that connection between the ordinary individual and the statutory body. When that decision is made there is an opportunity to make another observation to An Bord Pleanála, which may go against the point I have been making for the past four or five minutes. None the less there are processes, including the statutory involvement of local authorities that ensure and guarantee the rights of the individual that the points of view people need to raise on planning applications can be recorded and can be made known. Another issue is the public right of appeal, which exists through An Bord Pleanála and serves a very useful purpose.

Marine spatial planning based on the ecosystem approach is another very significant issue as are coastal landscape safeguards. How many of the coastal zone management committees of our local authorities were consulted in advance of publishing the Bill? How many of the stakeholders had an input into the Bill? The Government's promised national landscape strategy must expressly include seascapes, included in the European Landscape Convention definition of landscape. Many such issues require forensic examination.

I will be tabling amendments to this legislation as I see fit. I have a major issue with removing our role as public representatives and expanding the role of quangos, particularly at a time when politicians are being questioned over value for money. The effects and the roles we have in the political process are equally important. I have an issue with expanding roles. The absence of a department of the marine is another issue. We will see other Ministers on other occasions pushing through legislation on different aspects of the marine issue.

At this morning's meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food I made the point that we now have an opportunity with the appointment of the former Minister for Justice, Ms Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, as our European Commissioner. I believe we should seek the fisheries portfolio for her. It would say much about Government strategy in this area. However, it is an area around which we do not have a bureaucratic structure in terms of a single department of the marine. If there was a department of the marine perhaps the ban on public sector promotions might not apply to the Minister of State, Deputy Killeen, and he might find himself in Cabinet.