Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

One of the main things is that our planning process at the moment is lengthy, as has been pointed out by the Senator. It needs to be compressed if we are going to meet our targets and if we are going to deal with the energy crisis that is happening across Europe. The EU has agreed under the REPowerEU proposals to compress the planning period down to a maximum of two years for major renewable projects and then to one year for particular go-to zones which each member state must designate as being areas where rapid development of offshore energy is to take place. I expect that the process of obtaining all of the consents, particularly the planning consents, is going to be speeded up.

MARA is separate from the planning process and is being established to replace the former regime for any type of offshore planning consents that were granted in the past. These were covered, in other words, by the Foreshore Acts dating back to the 1930s. This was a lengthy and not very streamlined system. The idea is that MARA will be a modern version or replacement for those Foreshore Acts and will involve ensuring that the projects are compliant, suitable, properly financed and technically viable.

It has not been fully decided at this stage what types of benefits are available for communities and this will be subject to public consultation. It is clear that for major renewable projects to succeed, however, they must have the consent not only of the authorities but of the public and that members of the public buy in to the fact that this is giving a direct benefit to their local communities. It is going to be important that there will be large, substantial and obvious benefits from any renewable energy project.