Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)
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I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, to the House.

Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)
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Cuirim céad fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. Tá mé an-bhuíoch di faoi teacht isteach leis an gceist seo - ceist chonspóideach na feamainne in iarthar na hÉireann - a fhreagairt. I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House to answer this question, which relates to the ongoing debate around seaweed harvesting rights along the coasts of Ireland. I have raised this with the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, on previous occasions as well.

There was a lot of talk about the legal position regarding folios and whether harvesters have traditional rights, whether they have legal rights, how they can enforce those legal rights, etc. Deputy Coffey told us in the spring that he had asked the Land Registry to conduct an audit of all folios within a mile of the foreshore to assess how many folios around the island of Ireland have these rights attached. That is an important piece of work. We were told at that stage that it would be done by September and we have not heard back since. I wrote to the Property Registration Authority of Ireland, PRAI, but unfortunately it did not respond, so I felt I had no option other than to drag a Minister back to the Seanad to get clarification on this important issue.

As the Minister of State with responsibility for rural affairs, Deputy Phelan will be aware that there is a huge opportunity for us to develop seaweed harvesting around the coast. It is something that has been totally under-utilised since the foundation of the State. There was the company Arramara, which was in State ownership until recently, but its potential to develop as much as possible in the sector was probably hindered by the fact that the seaweed was being processed only to a basic level, after which the pellets were sent away for more diverse and value-added processing abroad. There is considerable potential and it is important for those coastal communities and for the seaweed harvesters that the income they can get from seaweed harvesting is maximised.

One of the concerns is that there is an attempt by the Government to corporatise the industry. We have seen a large international player, Acadian Seaplants, come into the market and take over Arramara Teoranta. We do not have an issue with a company coming in, but we do have concerns about who will be given licensing rights to harvest the seaweeds. One of the pertinent issues is the need to ascertain who has rights at present and who does not.

I understand that having a right written into one's folio is not the only way of asserting one's right to harvest seaweed, but it is an important one. Apparently, if a company applies for a licence to cut seaweed in a particular area, if somebody has a strip of seaweed harvesting in that area, the licence must exclude that strip. There are other ways in which people can assert their rights, but that is another day's work. One possible method is under the 1998 conveyancing Act, which contains articles allowing a person to assert his or her rights even if it is not included in the folio.This was a very important piece of work. I am not sure where it stands, which is why we have asked the Minister of State to clarify it. Has the work been finished? If so, can the information be made publicly available? Can we see a list of all the folios in which people have seaweed harvesting rights included? Can it be shown on a map such that we can see areas of the coastline where the rights exist, almost like a red line, and other areas in which there is a contention as to who has the rights and where licences can be issued? I welcome the Minister of State and hope she can clarify the situation.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue. I know exactly how people are thinking around the issue and I understand their concerns. I welcome my colleague, Senator Máiría Cahill, to the Seanad. Again, I thank Senator Ó Clochartaigh for raising the issue and allowing me the opportunity to set out where the Department stands on regulating the harvesting of wild seaweed under the 1933 Foreshore Act.

The Department has received a number of applications under section 3 of the Foreshore Act for licences to harvest seaweed. As has been outlined in previous debates, the applications are varied, being made by both individuals and commercial harvesters. The applications range from very small-scale harvesting of niche seaweed species to large-scale commercial harvesting, as the Senator pointed out. All foreshore lease or licence applications must be assessed in the context of the applicable regulatory framework. Public participation is a requirement of the foreshore consenting process and a number of submissions received by my Department expressed the view that certain rights to harvest seaweed exist, with some submissions referring to such rights to collect seaweed.

My Department sought the advice of the Office of the Attorney General on the interaction between the Foreshore Act and any relevant appurtenant rights, that is, rights that attach to a piece of land close to the foreshore to collect or harvest seaweed. My Department has engaged with the Property Registration Authority of Ireland, PRAI, to attempt to establish the extent of appurtenant rights specified in Land Registry folios to harvest seaweed that may exist. On foot of this request, the PRAI has provided my Department with data detailing the extent of the rights in seven of the western seaboard counties, namely, Cork, Kerry, Limerick, Clare, Galway, Mayo and Donegal. I acknowledge the valuable assistance of the PRAI in compiling the information for my Department. It was a complex task, given the manner in which the requested data is held by the PRAI and having regard to both the PRAI's and my Department's obligations under data protection legislation.

From information provided by the PRAI, it is clear that appurtenant rights to collect seaweed exist, and the implications of such rights regarding the harvesting applications before my Department are being assessed. It is important that these rights, including the location and scale of such rights, are fully considered to inform the evaluation and determination of such harvesting applications. This process is ongoing.

Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State and welcome that she has told us this work has been done in seven counties. My understanding from the PRAI is that anybody can get a copy of a folio of land if they pay the charges. Making the information available is not necessarily a data protection issue. Will the Minister of State make the information available? Can a map be made available showing where stripes of harvesting rights are attached to certain parts of the shoreline?It would be important and useful to anybody making any future applications to know that there are folio rights in certain areas already. These rights are on the folios, so they are public information. These documents can already be availed of through the Land Registry. It would be important for the Minister of State and her Department to make this information available publicly so that people can see where these rights actually sit.

Ann Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Labour)
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Perhaps I will go through the legal advice. It is clear from the advice of the Office of the Attorney General that the Department needs to establish the scale of appurtenant rights to harvest seaweed before it can answer some of the questions that have been raised and process certain licence applications. The Department must take account of any established legal rights, and the aggregate quantification of these harvesting rights, as part of the application process. This requires the Department to identify the folios to all land bordering on the part of the foreshore and the folios to all parcels of land with the exception of urban lands and housing estates within one mile of that part of the foreshore which is the subject of the licence applications currently with it, and to examine those folios to ascertain whether they contain any entries showing a right to take seaweed from that part of the foreshore. I appreciate that the note I have read is probably a little legalistic. If it helps the Senator, I will give him a copy of it so that he can go through it. If he still has concerns about specific aspects of this matter, he might come back to me.