Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As I started my opening speech, I will start this one by agreeing that transparency is important in this process so that people in the communities in which these licences are sought are aware of what is happening, and indeed the applicant him or herself.

I can only speak to what has happened in the forestry sector in terms of licences. We have a forestry licence viewer, which is a new, more interactive facility for forestry licences that the public can access and see the information. It may not give every detail at this stage. Maybe it exists for the aquaculture licensing sector. I do not know. If it does not, maybe that is something they could look into to make it more transparent and provide that public participation piece that is often missing from licensing and planning applications.