Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This is an historic Bill. I think it is about 90 years in the making, but it is historic to get it to this stage. I thank the Minister for his work and my colleagues in the Seanad who sat on the committee chaired by Deputy Matthews. Deputy Matthews has been working night and day on this Bill. We have not seen him because he has been working so hard. He has met with every NGO in the country a ridiculous number of times. The NGOs have played a huge part in this Bill. Many of the NGOs have expertise that we do not have as politicians. I wish to thank the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, Coastwatch, the Sustainable Water Network and the Irish Wildlife Trust.It is very important. The Bill makes me very happy. We have worked with everybody, including officials and the NGO sector. This is a good Bill. It is very complex and this is why so much work went into it. We fought for this in the negotiations for the programme for Government. People often challenge us by asking why we went into government, or they say that we should not have done this or that. This makes me proud to be in the Green Party and proud of being part of this coalition Government.

This Bill was so needed because now we can look at our waters which, as previous Members said, cover seven times the amount of land we have. We really had no idea what was going on in it. Apart from great people such as Dr. Simon Berrow and Mr. Ken O'Sullivan who made have made amazing documentaries about our sea creatures, we had very little clue as to what was going on. Now we will have to find out properly because if we do not know that, then we cannot decide where our offshore renewables can go. This is important legislation because up to now we have been fumbling around in the dark and we have not moved fast enough on renewables because we have not had this legislation, the research or the expertise. I believe we should give more money to the NGOs, especially if they have very good marine biologists. These are the experts we need. Sometimes the NGOs are put under a lot of pressure to contribute to this debate but there may only be four or five people working in an NGO. That can be difficult and, therefore, we should value it. If we have experts in ecology working in the NGO sector we should fund them and hire them to help us with this research. There is a great deal of work to be done with regard to the Bill so that we know what we are dealing with.

Separately, there is the marine protected areas Bill, which will be amazing. People will be relieved, because who does not love a dolphin? Everybody wants to get this right, from a teenage girl to the older man who has watched dolphins all of his life. We all care about the oceans. This 90 years-a-coming Bill, and the next one to follow, will finally enable people to have trust that we are doing it right and that we are doing the right things in the right place.

I thank the Minister. The Bill sets out how we are going to meet difficult targets on emissions reductions and the transition to clean energy. The biodiversity of our oceans is so amazing and gives so much as well as enabling carbon sequestration. One whale can take in 5,000 tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime when the whale dies it still holds onto it. They have huge part to play and we have been undervaluing them as just lovely things, but we were not taking them seriously and the value they bring.

I thank the departmental officials, some of whom I see here today, for the significant work they have put into this and the briefings they gave to the committee. The committee did a very good job and listened to lots of submissions. There was a suggestion that the committee would recommend that marine protected areas should be part of the Bill. This is partially true. The committee did suggest that marine protected areas should be part of the Bill and the same recommendation also provided that the marine protected areas provisions should continue in the parallel legislative process, which is under way at the moment as the Minister outlined. It is good that they are separate because marine protected areas is such an important issue it would be wrong to put it under this Bill, which is already quite complex. If we are to take marine protected areas seriously, we would want a separate Bill. It is good that this decision was made.

The Bill before us is large and complex. It comprises a series of provisions in the marine and maritime area. In recent months there has been the national marine planning framework, a document that went through extensive public consultation and a large stakeholder involvement group. This was not something we turned out overnight. If we clock up all the hours, it was thousands of hours, and not just by civil servants and politicians; the NGO sector and the public at large engaged on a daily basis. This has been grassroots fed.

The recent Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2021 sets out the boundary of our marine area. This is massive and comprises seven times the land area at 500,000 km. There have been concerns around marine protected areas and I share some of those concerns. Why would someone not be concerned? We would be mad not to be concerned about marine protected areas because currently we do not have any. It is great now because we have come such a long way in one and half years. Let us look at where we are now. We are getting our Maritime Area Planning Bill, we are getting our marine protected areas Bill next year and finally we will be able to move safely to knowing where the right places are to put the renewables. When I think of offshore wind, I think that it is great for our carbon emissions, but that we had better put it into the right place. Those concerns can now be alleviated with this Bill and the future Bills we bring.There are also special areas of conservation, special protected areas and natural heritage areas in our waters. These are not generally designated under planning but are designated under EU directives such as the habitats directive and the birds directive, as enacted through the Wildlife Act 1976, as amended. We do not designate these. Through the legislation on marine protected areas, we will designate marine protected areas. That is really important and it is why it is so important that it be a separate Bill.

There will be a consenting process before we see many of these developments in the sea. That is key. We have a fear of the big oil and petrol companies switching to renewables, coming in and taking over our seas and putting developments wherever they want. That is the concern people in the NGO sector have because we have had experiences like that in the past. That is why this is a historic day. We should celebrate this Bill. Of course, people will always give out, moan and complain but today is a very positive day for this Government. I am proud to be part of it and I am proud of this Bill.