Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious that the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine has completed six or seven sessions on this Bill. At three hours per session, that means 20 or 21 hours of work has been done by the committee and I commend the committee members on that. I also know that this issue was discussed at length on Committee Stage in the Dáil.

There is a hierarchy of plans, and sitting at the top of it is the EU legislation. Beneath that is the marine spatial planning directive and other directives. Beneath those is the Twenty-six Counties marine planning framework. The marine policy statement is the practical implementation of the planning framework. Beneath that again are the spatial plans, which can be in the areas of the seas. Beneath those are the DMAPs, which can be regional or sectoral. When doing a marine spatial plan, there are a lot of processes that need to be gone through to ensure full consultation while adhering to EU requirements. We would prefer if the rigorous approach that is applied to the maritime spatial plan was also applied to DMAPs. I know this was discussed on Committee Stage in the Dáil but we still do not understand why the same process that is used for a maritime spatial plan is not being used for a DMAP. We were not completely satisfied by the Minister of State's response in the Dáil and I would appreciate a more detailed answer here on Committee Stage in the Seanad.