Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I echo Senator Warfield's concerns about these amendments being brought in at such short notice.I recognise that the Minister of State speaks about the national planning framework for which there was plenty of time and huge public engagement. To my mind the marine spatial planning document should be on the same footing with the same support and resources to enable the people of Ireland and the different communities and agencies that would want to contribute to do so. As we know, we are an island nation, we have a huge maritime territory and we have often put it on the back foot. We have an opportunity to get this right this time. I ask that we take time to ensure that we have the best for the people of Ireland.

It is incredible that we are now asked to approve the entire primary legislation framework for marine spatial planning in Ireland, introduced to us on Report Stage of the Bill. If we think in terms of process, this whole Bill has gone through the Dáil. It is now coming to Report Stage in the Seanad and here we are handed a huge amount of amendments. I echo Senator Warfield's concerns with how the Seanad is being lumped with a load of amendments on Report Stage of this legislation. As the Minister of State said, we are scheduled to discuss the marine spatial strategy planning at 6 p.m. this evening so it is like the cart before the horse. We are talking about planning and I am standing here thinking that we are not even getting it right at this stage.

As the Minister of State knows, the Seanad is committed to a high level of protection of the marine environment and has called for the designation of marine parks covering 50% of our waters. We expect that this protection would be included in the provisions being proposed today. Unfortunately this legislation, as being proposed by the Government now, does not refer to or set in train that protection for our marine environment. I want to be able to propose amendments to the Minister of State's proposed text and if these provisions are brought back to us in a separate Bill, I will propose amendments to give effect to the marine parks and marine protected areas that we so badly need.

I also have a fundamental question as to why the Minister of State is proposing to give himself the power of being the competent authority for marine spatial planning. We have an excessively centralised system of government in this country and the Minister of State is seeking to centralise it further. I believe in the value of a decentralised system with the involvement through local government of a wide variety of perspectives and experiences. We set out most of our terrestrial spatial planning policies at county and regional levels. In the case of marine spatial planning the best approach would be to produce and approve these plans at a regional level. Our regional assemblies have already developed significant expertise in the marine spatial planning area. For example, the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly has produced a strategic management framework for Dublin Bay, the result of a three-year, EU-funded project under the EU LIFE+ programme. It is about consistency in how we do things and I feel the Minister of State has put us on the spot here and, given the area concerned, we should have had more notice and time.