Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 37 seeks to amend Government amendment No. 209, which amends section 75 of the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 and really worryingly inserts a new subsection (4) which reaffirms that the need to obtain maritime area consent for a development under subsection (1) is not needed for maritime uses listed under Schedule 3 of that Act. One of those usages is "maritime usage for the purposes, or consisting, of the exploration of working of petroleum (within the meaning of Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act 1960), or the restoration of the area in which such exploration for, or working of, such petroleum has taken place". We are in a climate and biodiversity emergency and the fact that the law provides an exemption for exploring for or working petroleum is unacceptable and we should now take the opportunity to remove this amendment.

Amendment No. 38 removes the new subsection (4), while amendment No. 39 inserts a new caveat in the form of paragraph (b) which would provide that:

Subject to paragraph (c), subsection (1) shall not apply where a prospective applicant for the development permission referred to in that subsection has, on or before 1 October 2022, entered into consultations with the Board (P) under section 37B of the Act of 2000.”.

Amendment No. 40 would explicitly exclude maritime usage "for the purposes, or consisting, of the exploration of working of petroleum (within the meaning of Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act 1960) or the restoration of the area in which such exploration for, or working of, such petroleum has taken place" from the exemption.

Amendment No.41 seeks to amend the new paragraph (c), inserted into section 175 which provides where a person is, for the time being, not required to be the holder of a MAC by virtue of the operation of paragraph (b), the person shall make the MAC application concerned before the second anniversary of the date of the grant of the permission concerned pursuant to Part 3 of the Act of 2000. This amendment would reduce the time period for the MAC application to the first anniversary of the date of permission being granted, as two years is simply too long a period after permission being granted to enforce a requirement to MAC.

Amendment No. 42 inserts a new subsection (2) into the proposed section 75A which would provide that subsection (1) shall not apply "to a proposed maritime usage referred to in that subsection that is the subject of a lease made under section 2 of the Act of 1933 that authorises the lessee to do, for the purposes of such usage, one or more than one of the acts referred to in that section.”

Finally, amendment No. 43 attempts to mitigate against some of the amendments to the Maritime Area Planning Act by inserting a new section 75B which would provide that "neither section 75 nor section 76 shall apply for a maritime usage in a part of the maritime area consisting of development (including the laying of cables or pipelines or both) authorised by a lease made under section 2 of the Act of 1933 pursuant to an application for such lease made under that Act before the establishment day.”