Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage debate -
Thursday, 26 Jan 2023

General Scheme of the Marine Protected Areas Bill 2023: Discussion

Chairman

I welcome everybody to the meeting. Today we commence pre-legislative scrutiny on the general scheme of the marine protected areas Bill and we are joined by Mr. Richard Cronin, principal adviser on the marine environment; Dr. Oliver Ó Cadhla and Dr. Tim O’Higgins, scientific policy advisers; and Mr. Conall O'Connor, assistant principal officer, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Members have been circulated with the opening statements and the general scheme of the Bill which was published mid-December.

I will read a quick note on privilege before we commence. Members are reminded of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the place where the Parliament has chosen to sit, namely, Leinster House, in order to participate in public meetings. Those attending the committee room are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their contributions to today's meeting. This means they will have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. Both members and witnesses are expected not to abuse the privilege they enjoy, and it is my duty as Chair to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction. Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise, or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

The order we will follow is probably going to chop and change a bit because members have to go to parliamentary questions in the Dáil and I will have to vacate the Chair temporarily but we will make sure everybody gets plenty of time. I invite Mr. Cronin to make his opening statement.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I am the principal adviser for the marine environment in the Department. I am joined by my colleagues Dr. Oliver Ó Cadhla and Dr Tim O’Higgins, scientific policy advisers, and Mr. Conall O’Connor, assistant principal officer. Marine protected areas, MPAs, are key measures to ensure we have a healthy, productive and sustainably-used marine environment. They are important tools to achieve the objectives of the EU marine strategy framework directive and the OSPAR Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, for which my section has national responsibility. Ireland’s programme for Government commits to achieving 30% MPA coverage by 2030 in line with the European biodiversity strategy and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

The area of Ireland’s seas and ocean currently under area-based protection stands at just over 8%. We have a long way to go to meet our national commitments. Ireland has, up until now, relied mainly on the EU birds and habitats directives to provide area-based protection in the marine environment. We have lacked the legislative tools to go beyond protecting the habitats, species and features listed in those directives. As a result, many marine habitats and species, including critically endangered species such as the angel shark, and important or sensitive habitats such as coastal seagrass beds or cold-water coral gardens, have not had sufficient legislative protection.

To address this issue, in 2019 an expert group was asked to provide independent advice on how best to expand Ireland’s network of marine protected areas, MPAs. The main findings of its 2020 report were the need for new primary legislation to address the legislative gap; the need for full and meaningful participation in the design, production and delivery of MPAs and the need to establish suitable structures for the effective management of MPAs. These findings received resounding public support of 99% in a subsequent consultation in 2021. It is important to note that, in general, MPAs do not have to be wholly sterile environments with no activity. They should instead be managed to achieve specific conservation objectives. Activities may be permitted within them, so long as they are sustainable and compatible with the MPA conservation objectives. However, the proposed legislation will allow for the possibility of highly-protected MPAs where no human activities are permitted.

The general scheme presented today attempts to translate these findings into a legal instrument. The goal has been to produce a scheme for modern environmental legislation to protect biodiversity, mitigate against climate change and to promote ecosystem-based management in the marine environment. We have also worked closely with the Office of the Attorney General in developing the general scheme.

The general scheme is divided into three parts. The first part includes title, definitions and application. These are standard provisions. Part 2 contains the main substance of the proposed Bill. I will touch on its main features. The ocean environment policy statement described in head 6 will, among other things, set the priorities for MPA designations. This will enable the process to focus, for example, on specific geographic areas, species or ecosystem processes or on particular site characteristics such as size, resilience or connectivity. Participation is at the heart of the general scheme. This includes participation in the identification of features and species for protection in head 7 and in the development of MPA proposals, their management objectives and measures in head 8.

The scheme provides for an independent scientific, technical and socioeconomic advisory body referred to as the “Expert Body” in head 16. This will be supported by a secretariat and will advise the Minister on designation and effective management of MPAs. It provides for working groups to directly support this expert body as required. This will ensure a flexible structure for effective participation, that will facilitate MPA design that can be applied equally in busy coastal and remote offshore areas. The scheme also gives the Minister powers to appoint management authorities in head 11 and provides for emergency powers of MPA designation in the case of man-made or natural disasters in head 12. It also makes provision for rapid identification of areas to facilitate climate adaptation in head 13. Part 3 of the general scheme includes the details of the duties of authorised personnel and of the prosecution of offences. It also provides for a regular review of the legislation to ensure that it remains fit for purpose.

With almost 500,000 sq. km of highly valued marine territory, Ireland has a national obligation and a global responsibility to protect and conserve marine biodiversity and the extraordinary resources and benefits which marine ecosystems provide. The general scheme provides a basis for the legal structures that are needed to deliver MPA designation and management and to promote meaningful participation in the process, for people and for nature. I look forward to hearing the views of the committee on the scheme and to answer any questions arising.

Chairman

This is important legislation and I am delighted to see it come forward. We have two more sessions after this on next Tuesday and Thursday when we will meet with fishers and look at community engagement. We will also bring in some industry representatives and will then meet the Irish Environmental Network and the environmental NGOs. This has been well overdue. As Mr. Cronin mentioned, we had a small number of our marine areas protected - approximately 2% or 3% - under special areas of conservation, SACs, and special protection areas, SPAs. This legislation is necessary because we depend on that sea area. Most of our energy in the future will come from out there. It will come under pressure from that. Our fishers are under considerable pressure as it is. Coastal communities that depend on the tourism and recreation aspect as well and that is not to mention the climate function of a functioning marine ecosystem. It is critically important. Many people ignore the area much of the time, because it is just out there. It is just the sea. We are not aware of the detail and it is far away. The damage done to our marine environment is probably not as obvious as the terrestrial damage that has been done, because that is visible and we see it every day.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I thank Mr. Cronin and the team for coming in. Like the Chair, I welcome the publication of the general scheme. Our view is this is important and the sooner it progresses in the right direction, the better for all of us. The legislation is much delayed and many of us were of the view that it would have been better had this been introduced in parallel with the offshore planning regime, but we are where we are and we will work with the timelines in front of us. Many of us will probably have even more questions for the Department after we have gone through the three sessions. It might be helpful if a private briefing with the officials at the latter end of pre-legislative scrutiny is facilitated, just for us to go through more technical aspects. I have a long list of questions that I will rattle very quickly. Unfortunately, I have to leave for oral questions with the Minister but I will come back. If the questions I ask are not dealt with, it would be great if written replies could be given to the committee at some stage.

With regard to the "Expert Body" in heads 5 and 16, it is not clear from the general scheme who is likely to be on this body; what exactly it will be doing; what the process of selection will be or why such wide discretion appears to be given in the general scheme to the Minister in setting it up and giving its direction. Will the witnesses give us more information on the who, what and when of the "Expert Body"?

I have questions about head 6 with regard to the ocean environmental policy statement. Who will develop it and over what period? With whom will it be developed in consultation? How will it relate to the other policy statements we are getting under the maritime area plan and the framework that was agreed by the Oireachtas previously? The language in head 6(4) with regard to the 10% and 30% is exceptionally weak. My understanding is we were meant to hit 10% in 2010. That is not an option. It is an obligation under EU law and we have missed that. Likewise, my understanding is the 30% by 2030 is an obligation. With regard to reaching 10% "as soon as practicable" and 30% "by 2030", why is that softer language than is required under EU law? What would be the consequences of us missing the 30% designation by 2030 in the context of EU enforcement actions, etc?

Will the witnesses give us as much information as they can with regard to designation in head 11, about what the timeframe will be and what will happen while the designation process is under way? There is no discussion of pending or interim designations, which I understand have been used in other jurisdictions. I am keen on that.

One of the subheads I am most concerned about is head 14(5)(a), which deals with existing authorisations. There seems to be a suggestion that where an existing authorisation or consent is in place and even if after the designation process takes place, the activity that is authorised under licence or consent does not comply with the conservation objectives in the designation order, the Minister can allow those activities to continue. The circumstances are set out in heads 14(5)(a)(i) and 14(5)(a)(ii). Will the witnesses confirm this means that there is a provision if, for example, the designation process concludes, on the basis of scientific evidence, that the location of head 14(5)(a) should not have certain types of activity or those activities would damage marine biodiversity, where Government decides, as per heads 14(5)(a) and 14(5)(b), that there is an overriding economic interest by such meeting our wind energy targets, the latter will trump the former and we could be in a situation where marine biodiversity could be sacrificed in the interest of meeting our energy efficiency targets? That is essentially what the provision is as I read it. Will they confirm whether that is the case?

Will they give us more information about enforcement authorities in head 15, especially the navy and the extent to which it has the capacity and the ability to deal with environmental and biodiversity enforcement?

Clearly, it can be enforced regarding people infringing on areas where they should not be, but there is a lot more to enforcement than that. Why is there no role, in conjunction with the Naval Service, for the Marine Institute, for example, to do all of that?

I am confused about the management authorities and I want to clarify what they are going to do and why. On monitoring, there is a whole series of issues around this, for example, what is to be monitored and how often; is it the network or is it individual marine protected areas; and who will do it and what are the resources for that? Heads 21 and 22 refer to authorised persons. I do not understand this so perhaps Mr. Cronin can provide clarity. I do not see mention of restoration. As we go through the designation process, what about those parts of our marine area that have been badly damaged by existing activities and is there a mechanism or process by which restoration can be introduced in the designation process?

Mr. Richard Cronin

I thank the Deputy for the questions. There is a lot to get through so I will take the questions one at a time. The first question was on the expert body and its composition. The thought process behind this is that the power to designate will need to be based on some sort of scientific evidence and an expert scientific body is considered to be the best approach to do that. There is a limited amount of this expertise so we consider that the establishment of this body, with those life science skills, socioeconomic skills and other technical skills that we have set out, is the best way to do it. The Minister will be empowered to appoint that body and it will then be able to allow participation through subordinate working groups. That body will then advise the Minister on designations, processes and procedures, and on issues like management recommendations and monitoring. There are various pieces of advice that have yet to be developed, and they will vary potentially from marine protected area designation proposal to marine protected area designation proposal. That is all I can say in regard to the expert body.

The next question was on the ocean environment policy statement. One of the things we are quite conscious of in the development of this is creating a wider policy context for what the ambitions are for marine protection in a given period. The policy statements are envisaged to be revised at the latest every six years. This will allow us to articulate an overall vision for what we see as being necessary for the health of the ocean but also to set out those legitimate policies around sustainable use for food, energy, recreation, transport, communications, tourism and all of those different policies that are considered necessary, including sustainable use policies. We can then set out a priority for what we want to protect. We have already got scientific information about what is threatened and declining in the Irish marine space so it is question of what will be our primary objectives. Will it be focusing on area coverage or specific and unique ecosystem features, or prioritising areas that might be identified as being suitable for offshore renewable energy in the first instance? We could consider designations on the sensitivity of those areas first, from a biodiversity point of view. We would look at all of those things in a policy statement, as well as mechanisms for participation.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan took the Chair.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

In terms of the drafting and approval of that policy statement, is it envisaged that there would be a public participation element to it or Oireachtas engagement? What period of time will it take to produce that policy statement? What will its relationship be to the other policy mapping requirements, for example, under the related legislation we have dealt with in the past two years?

Mr. Richard Cronin

At the moment, we have a national marine planning framework, which is the overarching policy framework for the stewardship and sustainable use of the marine space. The policy statement will have to particulate that and a key feature will have to be the description of its relationship to that primary policy statement. It will contain that information but also specific priorities around marine protection.

As to who will draft it, we have commenced some work on this in the last month in my team. We have sat down and taken out a blank sheet of paper and asked what we want to achieve with this and how we would describe it, so we can get some preliminary work done on it. We think we can develop a policy statement on a non-statutory basis before the legislation is enacted so there is no delay in the commencement of legislation. We will be engaging with all the relevant policy Departments related to the sea in the coming months, and they have been notified of that as well. I understand that we intend to lay the policy statement before both Houses, and that is the intention at this stage. It will then give the expert group a framework within which to operate.

We are acutely aware of the need to ensure that, first, there is participation in this process and that it is not a top-down process, so the consultations have been explicit and that is what best practice is. The second thing we are conscious of is that the State and the people of Ireland have a growing and increased need to get benefits from the sea, and we need to make sure that those benefits can proceed at the same time as providing biodiversity protection. We are blessed in Ireland with an abundance of space and we have enough space to accommodate everything, but we need to make sure that when prioritising the designation of space, we are aware of the other needs for space as well, and avoid as much conflict as possible.

Will I keep going through the other issues?

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

That is the decision of the Chair.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Cian O'Callaghan)

Mr. Cronin may proceed.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will try to cover the rest of the issues. The Deputy mentioned head 4 and the point about achieving 10% "as soon as practicable". That is text that comes from the programme for government and is just to hold it there. The commitment to achieve 10% comes from the Convention on Biological Diversity. Ireland has missed that target and it is currently at 8.2% coverage, but it is hoped that it will be achieved this year. On the 30% target, the Deputy had a question about the implication if we-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The language is “up to 30%” rather than “30% by 2030”, so that gives some wriggle room. Why that softer language and what would be the implications, particularly from an EU enforcement point of view, if we were not to meet that 30% by 2030?

Mr. Richard Cronin

I think the 30% target at this point in the text is a target for us to reach in regard to what we believe is the commitment, and it may be the case in the future that that target is changed. As to whether there is a legal implication for us, at the moment there is not. It is a biodiversity strategy of the European Union, it is a policy commitment founded on scientific evidence and it is in the programme for Government. It is also part of the agreement for the post-2020 framework under the Convention on Biological Diversity. Looking into the future and the development of the European Union nature restoration regulation, these targets will potentially become binding in the next year or two.

We will end up looking at firmer and firmer targets.

The Deputy asked whether designations under head 7 could be time limited.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The question was on what the timeframe was. While the designation process was happening, was there no consideration of pending or interim designations? I am asking about the overall timeline of the designation process but also interim measures. When discussing the marine planning legislation, for example, and given that we had a series of legacy wind farm projects that had reached their maximums and were going to go for planning, we asked about what interim measures could be taken, as we all wanted wind energy. Based on evidence from other EU member states, the marine protected areas designation process is likely to take several years between the establishment of the legislation, the designated bodies, consultation, etc. To try to avoid the potentially negative trade-off of head 14(5)(a) where we have to choose between renewable energies and biodiversity in the meantime, are there interim measures or interim designations that could be considered, and was this issue considered in the drafting of the scheme?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We have a head on what we are calling climate adaptation - it is head 13 on the identification of sites. This is the acceleration for that purpose. It is envisaged to be a faster approach. In the ocean environment policy statement, we can prioritise those sites in the first instance, so they would be the first sites we would look to. As such, there is a way to mitigate the issue the Deputy has raised.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The explanatory note for head 13 reads: "rapid identification of areas which are not suitable for Offshore Renewable Energy". Given that there must be some assessment by the Government when the maritime areas of consent, MACs, are being issued by the Minister, this assumes that those sites are unlikely to cross head 13. These would be other sites. Is this a fair interpretation?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Could the Deputy repeat that?

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Regarding legacy projects, one of the concerns with the Bill has nothing to do with opposition to renewable energy, as renewable energy is something we all want. Given that MACs are in the process of being issued, or have been issued, by the Minister, where head 13 refers to the "rapid identification of areas which are not suitable for Offshore Renewable Energy", I presume we are not speaking about those areas where MACs have been issued, or are about to be issued, for the seven legacy projects on the east coast. It would be other areas, or am I wrong? Would it be possible for this provision on urgent area proposals to apply to any of those legacy sites or portions thereof?

Mr. Richard Cronin

What I was going to say just before the Deputy's question was that, in accelerating this work since December of last year, the Minister reconvened part of the expert body that produced the advisory report to carry out the ecological sensitivity analysis on that area of the eastern seaboard in order to bring greater certainty to those sites and to avoid conflict between their locations and ecologically sensitive or unique features that may need protection. This mitigation piece is already in train with the aim of being delivered this April. Head 13 could still be used for those designations in the Irish Sea.

I will add a caveat. We are not looking at the ongoing birds and habitats directives studies. Further work may still have to be done with those. What I am discussing is outside the birds and habitats directives. For example, the OSPAR Convention has produced a list of threatened and declining species, some of which are found in the Irish marine space. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, has a red list of species and habitats. These are the types of area we are considering and the group is doing a great deal of work. I believe a witness from it will appear before the committee next week.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I have to step out for a second.

Acting Chairman (Deputy Cian Callaghan)

I call Senator Boyhan.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I will be brief. Not to make another excuse, but I must appear in the Seanad. I hope there will be other members contributing. There may be some online.

I welcome the officials. This is important legislation. From a general perusal of the scheme, it is encouraging and positive. I will ask a few questions while poddling around the various heads. The first head that comes to mind is head 6, which deals with the ocean environment policy statement. The head reads:

(1) The Minister shall publish on a government website an Ocean Environment Policy Statement.

(2) The purpose of the Ocean Environment Policy Statement shall be to set priorities for protection of the marine environment including priorities and targets for the designation of Marine Protected Areas [which we are familiar with]

There is the standard language in terms of acknowledging national, European and international laws and treaties. That is a given. Perhaps I am wrong, so correct me if I am, but I am somewhat surprised by the statement that the "draft Ocean Environment Policy shall be available for public consultation for a period of four weeks". Is that the proposal?

Acting Chairman (Deputy Cian Callaghan)

It is what is said in the head.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Will Mr. Cronin confirm that? What is the thought process behind a period of four weeks? Will he tease this matter out with me?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We have identified the time limit of four weeks and other time limits in the draft general scheme as needing to be mapped out. We are trying to bring some sort of certainty to the commencement of the work while balancing it with a meaningful time period, which is the point the Senator is aiming at here.

Senator Victor Boyhan

It is four weeks from the date of publication of the ocean environmental policy. That is far too short for engagement. I want the officials to take this point away and to think about it. I would oppose this provision rigorously. It is not right. A public consultation period of four weeks is too tight. People have to be notified and engaged with, the time of year is a factor, etc. There are many factors that could shorten the period for some people.

The scheme reads: "If necessary and appropriate, the Minister shall revise the draft Ocean Environment Policy Statement to take into account any relevant considerations arising from public consultation." What is the degree of certainty around this? I hope it is not a meaningless exercise, with people just sending in submissions while the Minister has full discretion to accept, amend or reject them. This is a watery provision and I would like more certainty.

I am just flagging these issues. We are only engaging at this meeting. There is a great deal of talk about public participation, which is important, but will Mr. Cronin provide an example of a prescribed body? Where developments affecting the built heritage is concerned, for example, areas of architectural conservation or marine sensitive areas, it is a requirement that applications and proposals be referred to An Taisce and other environmental groups. What is the Department's view on prescribed bodies? Where are they in all of this? Other groups have been listed, but I do not see prescribed bodies like An Taisce. Some of these are funded by the State, but they have a voluntary element as well as community participation. Will Mr. Cronin tease this matter out for me?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We will take note of the Senator's point about timing. We have identified sorting the timelines out as work that needs to be done on the general scheme, but I thank the Senator for bringing it to our attention as well.

Regarding participation, I will say something before I address the issue the Deputy raised about prescribed bodies. From the advice we have received from experts, our own professional expert experience and the feedback from the public consultation, consultation is seen by many as not being sufficient.

It is quite challenging to turn participation into something in legal language but it is essential in the development of the whole process for its success, not only in the identification of things to protect but also in the development of overall site designation. That involves not just experts but also communities, the bodies that were talked about, both prescribed and non-prescribed, industry and sectors, all of which will need to participate. The sectors told us in our consultation process that they had no problem with the policy or the objective but that they wanted to be involved. We will be able to include those bodies in the participatory process.

Senator Victor Boyhan

Prescribed bodies are a bit more in-depth and tend to be focused on, for instance, issues like the Aarhus Convention. They are environmental and very focused. The main plank in all of this is the geographical definition of a maritime area, its character, conservation, protection, species, habitats, assessments, ecosystems and cultural systems. I even saw spiritual in there somewhere. There is a lot of diverse language. I wish to home in on environmental habitat conservation, the principles of engagement around that and public consultation regarding the Aarhus Convention, for instance. That threat is the biggest area of concern I am receiving from emails and correspondence.

I also take on board what Mr. Cronin has said. I had an email this morning from a public representative in County Cork, who asked about the impact of all of this on the vibrancy of maritime leisure. I was formerly director of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company for ten years. I know the challenges and the sensitivities that surround that. We also must have vibrant ports and harbours, and there is wind energy etc. I ask the Department to take that away as another thought in terms of something more definite and concrete about prescribed bodies, particularly the environmental pillars. I am not downing other groups. There are also economic considerations and so on. I would like the Department to take that point away from this committee meeting.

Regarding monitoring and enforcement, is the Department satisfied there will be enough powers in and around the enforcement bit? While we have all of the objectives and policy, I am not 100% sure on enforcement. Will the witnesses speak about the follow-on from enforcement? Head 24 deals with penalties and forfeiture. The issue is monitoring and enforcement of it through the powers of enforcement. That is important. There is no point in having legislation if we cannot enforce it. There are also the issues of penalties and forfeiture, which are dealt with under head 24.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will ask my colleague Mr. O’Connor to address the issue of enforcement.

Mr. Conall O'Connor

The powers of enforcement have been modelled on existing powers of enforcement in various similar marine environmental legislation. We are satisfied that they are quite robust. We also took legal advice before putting them into the general scheme. Regarding the powers of the authorised person, he or she would have the full suite of powers in similar legislation of any authorised person conducting an investigation to enter premises, seize documents, question people and gather materials within the confines of the Constitution. We did not reinvent the wheel. We were working on existing-----

Senator Victor Boyhan

Will Mr. O'Connor provide the other models they looked the committee?

Mr. Conall O'Connor

Sure.

Senator Victor Boyhan

The Aarhus Convention and head 25 deal with the open access data, which is important. It is all about transparency, engagement, participation and the principles. Are the witnesses satisfied this scheme is fully compliant with the Aarhus Convention and all of its objectives? Do the witnesses have concerns or doubts?

Mr. Conall O'Connor

I do not have any doubts. I reiterate that what we are aiming for and a fundamental pillar of what we are trying to achieve to deliver this protection of the environment is the concept of participation and very high levels of it. In my opening statement, I made reference to the fact that we want a model flexible enough to deal with close-to-shore areas with a lot of interests, stakeholders, citizens with views and businesses, and more remote areas where there are a discrete number of interested bodies, specialists and experts. There needs to be full participation in the identification of things to protect and in the development of an approach to protecting them, especially in the design of the management of the site, in other words, management recommendations, but also in our engagement with sectors like fisheries. It is clear they have knowledge we do not get from scientific research, which we also get from local coastal communities. We need to be able to design a system that allows the designation to capture that information so that, when we move to the development of management activities, whether that is management that intervenes in some way with human activity or that is education and guidance, the people who will need to take it up are part of the design process. That is what we have tried to do.

Regarding monitoring, there is already a national monitoring programme for the marine environment, which runs on six-year cycles. This marine protected area exercise and work to create these designations forms part of a wider programme to protect the marine environment. The monitoring programme falls under that.

Deputy Steven Matthews resumed the Chair.

Senator Victor Boyhan

I thank Mr. O'Connor.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I thank the officials for appearing before the committee. I welcome this Bill. It is hugely important. I agree with Senator Boyhan about the four-week period for public consultation. By the time members of the public know the consultation is open and running, which takes a bit of time, the four weeks may be finished. It is four weeks on paper but it does not give people an opportunity at all. That will create problems. I strongly urge the Department to extend it to give sufficient time for public engagement, which is important for confidence in the process, transparency, buy-in and the information that can be picked up by that process. For these designations to work, public participation is important. Any designations or protections and their enforcement rely on input from the public.

I have concerns regarding the heads about the lack of timelines, too much discretion, lack of detail, lack of obligations when marine protected areas are designated and a lack of remedies for habitats that were destroyed or damaged prior to marine protected area designations. When will the marine protected areas come into existence? Will there be provision in the Bill to give timelines and specifics on that? Head 6 is very non-committal, as was said before. It should be strengthened to something like a commitment to 30% by 2030, not up to 30% by 2030. The weaker language is in conflict with EU obligations and the commitment in the programme for Government.

The heads provide complete discretion regarding commencement and provisions. Can that be changed? Concerning detail for a conservation site or designated site, what will this mean? Can detail be given in the Bill on that?

Points have been made about enforcement. Not only does the Irish Naval Service not have the resources for this particular type of enforcement, it has been incredibly poorly resourced for its existing duties to the point of being in crisis concerning resources for the past number of years.

It is critically important it is resourced properly. It is not equipped now, for example, to monitor marine noise. Is this going to happen? Will there be a role for the Marine Institute in supporting the enforcement work of the Naval Service? It needs to be better resourced as well and would be able to assist in terms of the data end of enforcement.

Turning to areas not mentioned in the Bill, I can see no references concerning the EU marine legislation directive, the marine strategy framework directive, the marine spatial plan directive or the birds directive. Are these aspects mentioned and, if so, where? I ask because I did not spot it. If they are not included, should they not be to ensure there is this architecture that the Bill sits within? Regarding monitoring, and others have mentioned this issue, there is no obligation on the Minister in head 11(4)(iii) to appoint anyone to monitor. This provision simply allows for this to happen. Should this be changed so there is an obligation for someone to be appointed in the context of monitoring? Monitoring is very important. It is a key aspect of the habitats directive, for example. If there is no monitoring, therefore, then we have a serious issue. How would this work without monitoring? Surely not having an obligation to monitor is a weakness in the heads of this Bill.

We need an acoustic network around Ireland to protect cetaceans, including whales and dolphins. Will this legislation support this objective? Mention was made in the opening statement of an MPA network but there is no mention of it in the Bill. Surely having a network of MPAs and an acoustic network as part of that is important. Should this not be considered?

Equally, carbon-rich habitats are not mentioned in the Bill. These are significant sources of carbon dioxide emissions, especially when they are disturbed by activities such as bottom trawling. Should these habitats not be recognised in the Bill?

Turning to the issue of a licence being granted for marine activities in error and, subsequently, more data emerge to show this situation, I can see no provision in this proposed Bill that would allow for such a licence to be revoked. Should some provision not be made in this proposed legislation or these types of situations and scenarios?

Moving on to access to justice, should there not be a mechanism for the public to express and raise concerns, including around enforcement, similar to section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended?

Deputy Thomas Gould

I apologise but I have to leave. I have another meeting. Like Deputy O'Callaghan, and others, I had many questions. I hope we will catch up at a later stage.

Chairman

We have two more sessions on the subject anyway. I will allow the officials to answer all these questions. Deputy O'Callaghan has to be in the Chamber, but we will at least get the answers on the record. We will facilitate Deputy Gould on another occasion.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I thank the Chair.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will pick up on some of the points raised by the Deputy and give some responses and context. We have noted the issue on the timing and we will take this point away. We know there is work that needs to be done on this element. A point was also raised concerning EU legislation. We have covered this in head 6. We have tried to create this articulation clearly around not only EU legislation but global obligations as well, including the United Nations conventions. Regarding the marine strategy framework directive, this reference is in head 3(1)(b) and (d). We have, therefore, made references to those aspects. We have a national marine strategy for the protection of the environment under that directive already in place. It has been in place since 2008. We have also referred to it. We are, therefore, trying to create that link in this proposed Bill. If we need to make it clearer, we can do that.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I am sorry to interrupt. I appreciate this reference is there regarding the ocean environment policy statement and that it states this should take this element into account, as appropriate, and gives a comprehensive list in this regard. My point is on the proposed Bill itself. Apart from those references about taking these aspects into account, there are no other links into that architecture. There is no-----

Mr. Richard Cronin

No, but much of what we are trying to do here is not based on European legislation. The two primary conservation instruments are the birds directive and habitats directive. The marine strategy framework directive concerns protection of the environment with sustainable use. What we are seeking to do here, however, is to create further designations beyond obligations. The obligation in the marine strategy framework directive is to set up that framework for protection, but it does not provide a list in that regard. A specific part of that directive seeks the creation of these spatial marine protected areas. This is to go beyond what is required in those lists in the birds and habitats directives. This is what this proposed Bill endeavours to do. We can take this away and think about how we could describe this more clearly so that the anchoring point in the EU acquis and those laws flow through into this proposal. We can certainly take this element away as well and work on it. There is no problem with it.

Chairman

I remind members to mute themselves when not speaking. I ask Mr. Cronin to continue.

Mr. Richard Cronin

The Deputy also raised a point about enforcement. Regarding the role of the Naval Service, we are aware of the constraints it has. We have talked at length with colleagues in the Department of Defence about what to do in this situation and we do not have another alternative. There is a clear distinction between the role of the Naval Service acting as an agent of the State in this instance and prosecution, which takes place in a different way. In our view, there will be other ways of enforcing or ensuring the conservation objectives are upheld or, in other words, ensuring we improve the environment. Closer to shore, I refer to the involvement of society in marshalling this undertaking so that it becomes part of the social value structure. This is much more important than a police force at sea. Further out at sea, where we have discrete activities, we already have functions in place, whether this concerns fisheries patrol and enforcement or other activities.

The role of the Marine Institute was also raised by the Deputy. It does not have an enforcement function at all. The Deputy is right, however, to identify that the institute has a role in terms of scientific information and the gathering of data. The Department already has a service level agreement in place with the Marine Institute since 2019. Certainly, we are looking at reviewing it to allow us to see what role that institution may play in future in respect of warehousing of information, gathering of information and providing scientific advice and assessment. I refer to the sort of services we already get from the Marine Institute.

The next query from the Deputy concerned acoustic monitoring. We already have a monitoring programme for human-made noise in the sea, both impulsive noise and lower frequency noise caused by shipping. We collate that noise monitoring information with all the other countries in the north-east Atlantic. This system is already in place. I think the Deputy then mentioned some specific types of creatures, like cetaceans or mammals and carbon rich habitats-----

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I am sorry, but on this point, will the navy be given resources concerning acoustic monitoring if it is engaged in enforcement?

Mr. Richard Cronin

It is not yet clear that such acoustic monitoring would be carried out from naval vessels. Some of our acoustic monitoring is done from fixed positions, with a type of sentinel outpost. In other cases, the monitoring concerns an activity we know is going to take place in a certain location. We know the frequency and intensity of the noise energy to be introduced, so there is no need to monitor because we already know what sort of impact it is going to have. That activity is already regulated. Historically for us, this involved oil and gas exploration activities, but we are now moving into a phase where there will be investigations and development of offshore renewable energy sources.

The Deputy also mentioned carbon-rich habitats. This is one of the key things we are trying to achieve in this proposed legislation. We are trying to create an identification of things like that to protect, and this is where we think the ocean environment policy statement gives us the flexibility to list these priority issues. In our programme of measures under the marine strategy directive, which we reported to Brussels in December 2022, we identified the need to protect those carbon-rich habitats. Just as late as yesterday afternoon, we had a nature-based solutions workshop on coastal carbon habitats involving representatives from across several Departments, local authorities and research institutes.

We know about it and it is our sights to do something about it.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

That is great but given the importance of carbon-rich habitats, should they not be mentioned in the Bill?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Regarding our concern about starting to make a list, when we did a long piece of work on this, we had a long list of things but the more we put on the list, the more we found things we did not put on the list. What we would rather do is make that prioritisation list in the policy statement and then collect those species, habitats or ecosystem services like carbon storage - ecosystem features - in the identification piece. That allows us to have more participation. Were we, as the officials, just to make our list of what we wanted to protect, we would be excluding a lot of the participation piece.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I appreciate that rationale but in terms of climate change, carbon-rich habitats in our oceans are incredibly important so it seems strange to have legislation on marine protected areas that does not even mention that. I appreciate not wanting to have a long list but this is of incredible strategic importance to us in our climate change strategy.

Mr. Richard Cronin

We can find a way of describing it. If it needs to be brought more to the fore, we can do it because it is one of the objectives we have set ourselves and it is what we got from the experts and the public consultation. We need to take away the Deputy's observation and see how we would put it into the description but it is certainly something to which we have given a lot of thought. Did the Deputy ask a question about monitoring?

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

The heads allow for monitoring but there is no obligation for monitoring. The Minister can appoint someone to monitor. Monitoring is incredibly important for this to work.

Mr. Richard Cronin

Without getting too much into the complexity around how the designation and the management recommendation would work, in a management plan for a site, you can include monitoring requirements or obligations so that you can create monitoring obligations for those on site or for the site itself. Monitoring is carried out by a number of different competent bodies in the State and by others, such those involved in citizen science monitoring. You could then identify who is appropriate to do the monitoring and as part of not just the designation but the management recommendations for a site, you would have a piece of monitoring that take place with it. There are different levels of monitoring for different sites. A scientific research site might have a lot of monitoring because it is very sensitive or fragile, while monitoring might be less frequent for something with a slower recovery time. It is certainly part of the process of ensuring that you are travelling in the right direction towards a conservation objective.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

I appreciate the answer but according to the heads as they are written, monitoring can take place and someone can be appointed, not that he or she shall be. That is my concern. It is quite loose.

Mr. Richard Cronin

We can see how we can describe that to make that clearer.

Deputy Cian O'Callaghan

If we are all agreed that monitoring is key, it should not be discretionary. We must imagine a scenario where a Minister at some point in the future is not interested in or hostile to this when we have passed legislation that allows him or her not to appoint anyone to monitor. We must protect against that scenario ever happening.

Mr. Richard Cronin

We can look at head 19, which involves the duties of management authorities, and see how we can describe it more fully and clearly.

Chairman

I will take the next slot. I will follow on from something Deputy O'Callaghan said. I am conscious that people with a great interest in our marine environment - people in our coastal communities - will be watching this. Could Mr. Cronin describe a carbon-rich ecosystem of the kind described by Deputy O'Callaghan? What features such as coral, kelp or seagrass would it have?

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will ask Dr. Ó Cadhla to answer that question.

Chairman

I appreciate the range of expertise we have here and the opportunity we have to learn from it.

Dr. Oliver Ó Cadhla

It is a pertinent question, given the workshop we had yesterday. In terms of carbon-rich or carbon-capturing habitats, there are those that are seen as potential carbon-capturing habitats and those that are accredited as major carbon-capturing habitats. The two that come to mind immediately would be salt marshes, of which we have quite a large number, and seagrass habitats, both of which are very efficient and rank highly globally in comparison with forests in terms of their ability to capture carbon. A tropical example would be a mangrove forest.

The Chairman mentioned kelp and things like submerged muddy plains or abyssal plains, which are not disturbed and capture hundreds of years of biological material and carbon-based material that sits at the sea floor at depth for thousands of years, as an example of potential carbon habitats. We are also turning our attention to these potential blue carbon habitats. This is one of the reasons we had the workshop yesterday on nature-based solutions and how we can work to protect what we have, restore what needs to be restored and look to potential blue carbon habitats. Some very interesting research is being conducted by a number of institutions in the country that is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and the Marine Institute.

Chairman

The terminology we use is blue carbon habitats, so it is marine environments that are carbon-rich or have the ability to suck in the carbon. Regarding equating them to something on land, and much of the time when we are doing the marine planning stuff, we must think about how we do it on land to get our bearings on it. We equate it to something like our raised bogs - the kind of habitats with a lot of locked-in carbon we want to protect. That is interesting.

Regarding that potential national carbon capture or locked-in carbon, we are carrying out a land use strategy for our climate action plan to allocate the amount of CO2 sequestration there. Are we doing something similar for our marine area as part of that? Could we look at the potential of our seagrass habitats to incorporate that into it?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We identified that issue in respect of the climate action plan 2022, so in respect of the 2023 plan, the particular piece of work highlighted by Dr. Ó Cadhla involved how much is there and what the potential is. It is a simple question but one we do not know the answer to. It is a very important question to ask and get an answer to. If we look at what Deputy O'Callaghan highlighted in his intervention, it is a question of how much we protect and where we apply that protection. Those answers need to come to us so we can protect these habitats effectively. You then see where marine protection, biodiversity and climate mitigation all flow into one space. If you create the right spatial designation under this proposed general scheme, you will have a climate regulating benefit through carbon storage and a biodiversity benefit. These carbon habitats are very rich in biodiversity. All those things will flow into one space. It has been identified and we are working on it through the climate action plan as an action.

Chairman

Is it possible to plant seagrass and make conditions right where it naturally occurs so it expands?

Dr. Oliver Ó Cadhla

It is possible to do that and it is something we are looking at through the OSPAR Convention. There is a north-east Atlantic environment strategy that has a number of objectives, one of which is looking at nature-based solutions and restoration of carbon-rich habitats. Things like seagrass can be replanted. A number of projects are being led in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. We are interacting with and supporting Sweden, which is one of the contracting parties to OSPAR, regarding best practice methods for seagrass restoration, so it can be done. The challenge is a resource challenge and a scientific challenge but it is being looked at in a number of OSPAR countries and we are very much engaged with that full process.

Chairman

We will take the learnings back to here. We talked about data collection.

From my knowledge, we may not have applied as many resources as should have been applied over the decades to our marine environment and research and data collection there. We have a considerable amount of interest from wind energy developers who are going to have to carry out environmental assessments or whatever extra type of assessment that may be required by MPA designation, similar to the SACs, where one carries out a more stringent check. Is all of the data being gathered out there done in a standardised format, and is it accessible to the State to build up our body of knowledge out there? People are going out to collect the data but are we co-ordinating that?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We are co-ordinating the stuff we are doing. That is the best I can say to the Chairman without saying that we are not co-ordinating it. If a private company is doing something and there is commercial confidentiality around the information they are gathering for their own internal decision-making processes, I presume this would still apply to them. From our point of view, we have a co-ordinated monitoring programme to gather all of that data to make a set of decisions around the health of the environment, which we do every six years. So in that regard, yes we are co-ordinating.

When we look at having all of the information that is available to make good decisions - for example, we might want to make a designation decision or a decision on management or monitoring - what we are trying to capture in this general scheme is a structure where we can get all of the information that can be given to the experts, and that this can be brought forward. Perhaps it could be the private sector monitoring the information or data, or it could be research institutes, or local or national public bodies. We are also very keen to ensure that non-scientific knowledge is included in those data. This includes place names, local practices, history, and the experiences of people who engage with the sea, and how they describe that. We would like to capture all of that information. There is a large data set then available to us through the Marine Institute, but often we need to make sure that the data have a set of quality standards to them. There are other issues around these data such as the timeline for data and the quality standards before we can say it is appropriate to use those data.

Chairman

In the overall scheme of things, if we will have so many environmental assessments carried on out there, is there a standardised format where data should be gathered in a particular format so that data could be of value to us and that it is all compatible? They may be separate sets of information but they may not be inter-relatable. Is this something we need to set out through offshore renewable standards, through planning guidelines for the offshore, or through conditions attached to planning?

Mr. Richard Cronin

In the context of planning, the consenting of activity is not our area of speciality. Perhaps I could speak to the general point. We have a standardised data-gathering mechanism across all of the European Union member states, and even those countries not in the European Union, for exactly the purpose to ensure that what we are measuring is comparable to each other so when we make our assessments they are the same assessments. Those data standards exist already. In head 25 of the Bill’s draft general scheme, we have made the particular point of having open access data. Again, this is because we recognise that issue. We have an acronym: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable, FAIR. This speaks exactly to point the Chairman is making, which is that we aim to have to data collected and used for this purpose that we can reuse again and again. In our team our objective is that we measure once and use many times. It is the most cost-effective way of doing things.

Chairman

It was interesting that Mr. Cronin mentioned the non-scientific data and the more qualitative data that would come from the statutory and non-statutory engagement, which a lot of the developers would also do. Through Wexford, Wicklow, Dún Laoghaire and Dublin at the moment a lot of the offshore developers are having those public meetings and are gathering those data, including what people’s costs are and what they are going to do.

When we were doing the Maritime Area Planning Act there was a marine activities register or a register that was going to be run by the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, MARA - I am unsure of the correct term for it - whereby anybody seeking a MAC consent, or licensing, or doing anything out there, could access a register which would be open and accessible. As I understand it, the new planning and development Bill published today will have something similar such as an environmental portal where environmental impact studies and everything else would go. Will there be something similar for marine protected areas where a candidate would do the research and come back to outline what qualifies, and which would also contain all the processes and public consultation? Is there that kind of portal associated with the marine protected areas Bill?

Mr. Richard Cronin

At the moment we have a strong commitment to transparency and participation. We do not set out in the general scheme at the moment that it will all go on a website, but it is something that may be very useful to do. There is a wider project under the planning side, which is the national marine atlas. This would show a lot of this information through visual representation of the mapping system. In my own thought process, as we roll into the future and the designations are completed, it will be possible to see where these might reside as pieces of information for activities for decision makers. They could drill into it and ask what we are protecting here. It is not just a shape. They could look at the rules around that protection and the issues around monitoring. One would have much higher levels of transparency than we might have seen previously. This is a good objective and is achievable.

With regard to how we project the participation piece, we make reference to it on the Government website because it is a standard and transparent way of describing it. If in the future we need to get into a dedicated site so that those keen observers who are interested but not participating are able to see into the process, perhaps we can consider that as well. Potentially one would then have a workshop piece of a website where only those involved could go in, and then there would be the front of house to show the work that is being produced, the work programme, the plan, where we are going to next, and the meetings we are having. It would have the maximum transparency and would include people who are involved and the list of organisations that contributed. Those are the kinds of things that may be difficult to encode in legislation but maybe should be at the centre of how we describe our inputs and how we put the participation piece into effect. It is certainly something we would consider.

Chairman

Having access to that information is a major part of the battle that sometimes happens when one tries to protect something, even in land-based planning. For example, when one tries to deal with information around an architectural conservation area it tends to be a case of whether it is going to stop one from doing this or that. It tends to be light on information that provides reasons for doing something and the benefits that will accrue from it. That type of easy access, like an environmental impact report that would have a non-technical summary, would state this is what it is, this is the reason it is being done, and that is really good. Sometimes it can be too technical or obscure. All of the information might be out there but one must trawl through all of it looking for it. If we could bring it all together, that would really be part of the battle of bringing people's hearts and minds along. The science would support why we are doing it but we also need to bring along the public and those who might be affected by the development but do not see a benefit from it. I believe this to be quite important.

The opening statement referred to public consultation on whether we should do marine protected areas - I have paraphrased there - and the 99% of people who agreed. I presume the 1% just ticked the wrong box.

Was that what it was? How did the Department consult and so on? There is a resounding level of support for this.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will go back to before we started with the expert advisory body. We, as the expert team in government, have been acutely aware of the need to do this for a long time. Of course, we operate in a system and we must make sure we do what the system requires of us. To pick up on the Chair's last point, it is really clear that we have the science. The scientific facts are irrefutable. The scientists are clear, not only nationally but internationally, that there is a crisis and we must take action. The difficulty has been in our actions. Historically, we have forgotten to bring the people with us. In the establishment of the advisory body, we were conscious of capturing the views not only of life scientists but also of social scientists in order to understand the people part of it - what makes something valuable to people. We also consulted governance and legal experts to see how we would do this and what the rules around it would be. In their work, which took place during the first Covid lockdown in 2020, that group was conscious of the need to get the non-science voices and the non-expert voices. We were also conscious of this in our supporting role.

In September 2020, we held some really good round-table discussions online. We chose people from the fishing, wind and tourism sectors, along with local representatives, local communities and environmental groups, and we sat them in virtual round-tables with an independent moderator. We gave them a short presentation and asked them what they liked and did not like and what they were worried about. Their feedback is in the expert report. We thought they would resist the idea of MPAs, but they did not. Everybody was in favour at that point, before we went to public consultation. They all said that they wanted to know and they wanted to be involved. They wanted to be told. As the Chairman suggested, they did not want to find out after the event when they would have to manage the change and the disruption and when people would be angry and confused about why we are doing this. We suddenly realised that our challenge was around participation. The science will support it, but it is about getting participation right. That report was published in February 2021.

Then we launched a public consultation. It was online and semi-structured so there was a set of questions and also some open text. We run consultations for a lot of other environmental issues around the sea where you might get 50 or 60 keen respondents. In this case, we got over 2,300 individual responses so the response was overwhelming. The number was really big and it covered everybody. We received responses not just from those in urban areas who are really aware of this issue, but also from all the rural communities, all the sectors involved in the sea and all age groups. We were really impressed by the response. As part of the consultation, before we analysed the responses in the summer of 2021, we went around the coastline. We still had social distancing. We sat outside in circles outside carparks and we gave our show and tell. The Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, was with us. We gave our show and tell and we had a discussion under the Chatham House rule about what they liked, what they did not like and what they were worried about. It was the same response as we got before. The fishermen, for example, said they were the only group who needed a healthy marine environment to carry out their activity. They need to be involved because they have invested in its sector. If there is change coming, they need to be involved in how the change will happen and how they will participate in the process. This reinforced the message we got from the first piece of work with the expert group. Then the consultation analysis said the exact same thing.

We then moved to the drafting of this. We could write down that the Minister shall designate, but it is the build-out from that where the challenge arises because consultation is easy. You press pause and go out and ask a simple question. Participation as we see it, and as we heard from the public, from society and from the various sectors, has two parts. The first part is that they want to be involved in the identification of what is important to protect because that may not always be the thing we prioritise. In a coastal community, its local environment may be much more important than the specific species or habitat. The second part is how you get meaningful engagement in the design of a site. In this general scheme, we have tried to create ad hoc groups that would work in an informal way to help to deliver the work for the expert group. You could bring in everybody who has an interest in a particular location, species or habitat - everybody who has information or a view on what should happen - and then create some sort of consensus on collaborating. That is what we have tried to design but it comes from what we know will work. We also looked at best international practice. Many protected sites around the world have been accused by outside bodies, by the environmental pillar, as being paper parks. They exist as a shape on a map and nothing else.

We have tried here to create the design of the management recommendations with the designation, that is to try and connect the two of them. It may not always be possible and they may have to be done one after the other but the objective would be to do the two at the same time so that there is certainty that the site is there and what it will mean. I am reminded of some of the interventions by committee members about offshore renewables, for example, or an operative sector. Certainty is the big thing that everybody needs to have around what it will mean for them. We have tried to incorporate that. What we noticed about our approach and what the public told us was that when we saw what the convention on biological diversity has been doing since 2020, we realised that it is about all of society doing this together for the benefit of society and nature. We think we have captured it in an Irish context for the marine environment. That is the objective of what we are trying to achieve. It comes from what the public has said it wants. The public has concerns, of course. This affects different groups in different ways. For some people, it is their livelihood and for others, it is how they feel about things. We need to make sure that as we go forward they are all included. That is what we are trying to capture.

Chairman

When you look out to sea, for most people it is just the sea. It is just a flat surface going out to the horizon. It is the coastal features that they become much more aware of. They want to protect the dunes, the headlands, the migratory bird sites and that kind of thing. I am thinking about trying to inform the public and keep it generally informed that there is an MPA that extends 12 km out to sea. Many viewing points at headlands across the country could have information boards that explain that the MPA is out there, is a certain size and co-exists with the fishing community. It is offshore and that is what we are trying to protect. It think that would be a very helpful part of the process. It is a little bit down the line. We have to designate and get our management plans out there first. Did that come up?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Yes, certainly. We have had a lot of feedback on people being made aware. That is what we would call education or citizen engagement. Those are the terms we use. It is about how we inform the public about what we are doing. That is on the ground, on site, but also as we go through the process. At the moment, we have a number of citizen engagement initiatives which we do for things like marine litter where we give ownership, more or less, of the local area which is stewarded by the local community and we fund that as part of our programme of work. We see that a similar approach could be adopted here. We see a good template for engagement. Dr. Ó Cadhla mentioned the issue of nature-based solutions. Again, if you have local communities which are aware of the value of the environment and you provide the resources to them to steward it, and there will be a need for resources, you get their support because the system recognises their involvement in the seascape. There is still a huge opportunity for things such as signboards and notice boards.

It is certainly something one would notice is much more prevalent in other member states. For information, and it is not certain yet, we are finalising an application for EU funding to deliver much of the MPA work. We are hoping we will get it but, again, we do not control the decision-making process. Part of the description of the work we want to do in the delivery of MPAs is a very significant module on communications. This involves explaining, engaging, talking - not talking at but talking with - and delivering this on a regionalised basis; not from the centre out, but being out where the people involved in the sea are.

Chairman

That is critical to the success of this and of all things. As a committee we looked at the river basin management plans and water quality in general in the country. I often ask myself why more people are not banging on the door and worried about these things. These are matters which we take for granted. The sea is an issue, in particular because of everything that washes off the land and out of the sinks. It is the ultimate depository for everything, together with the other functions it also provides for us.

It was mentioned that some EU directives are not mentioned specifically in this. My belief is that a very wide range of different conventions, directives and requirements are mentioned in it. To be clear, if an EU directive is not mentioned in something, do we still have a requirement to comply with that EU directive?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Yes.

Chairman

Finally, Mr. Cronin mentioned that the designation and the management plans are similar, or are to go in tandem with each other, which is something we would have learned from designating Natura sites, where we did not apply management plans to them. Essentially, we just have that line on the map.

Another issue is fragmentation and connectivity. Is the movement of species through the ecological corridors in the marine environment something that needs to be considered in MPAs? Is that also part of the management plans?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Two separate issues arise there. On management plans for the sites, in my opening statement I made a point about the fact that human activity can take place in marine protected sites where it is compatible with the conservation objectives. For that activity to take place, there must be some sort of management plan around the site so that when I go into the site I can say I am complying with the management plan. In other words, I can paddle my canoe across the top of a site that protects eelgrass or seagrass meadows because I am not damaging them in any way. That piece will be essential for them to be effective.

I will speak about the broader network. I believe the Chair used the term "connectivity", which means different things for different species and features. I will give the committee two examples of this. With a mussel or oyster bed, connectivity is touching or very close to touching because it is about how the sites communicate with each other for the species. With a large mammal or migratory whale, moving perhaps from the Azores to Icelandic or Arctic waters, connected sites might be hundreds of kilometres apart. There are links to the species life-cycle stages, such as calving, feeding, and following the food stocks. It would be possible and it would be one of our objectives to create a connected network, with the qualifier that connectivity means different things.

We certainly see the opportunity to collaborate with other countries in the Atlantic to create a broader network. This network of Irish sites will sit inside a north Atlantic network that is already in development. There are 1.5 million sq. km of the north Atlantic that is already protected. The work we are doing will fit inside that and will ensure that where we place sites, they will be connected, will be representative of all the things and will talk to other member states’ and countries’ sites, whether they are in the EU or outside of it. That piece will be possible. It would be a useful objective and would give an example of the sort of priority one could put into the ocean environment policy statement; where one could highlight the fact that these large mammals and their life-cycle stages would need to be protected on a trans-boundary basis.

The other point mentioned by the Chair was in respect of the movement of certain species that might change their location, through climate change or otherwise. As waters are getting warmer, cold water species are moving further north and species which we have never had before in our waters are appearing more frequently. We have thought about the idea of having an MPA with a shape which changes from time to time. We think that might be legally difficult to describe and even more difficult to enforce. I believe we have settled on the idea that we would be able to review the site designations so that if the science tells us that the thing we are protecting has moved to another location, we could consider the designation of the protection where that species now is scientifically proven to be. That will allow us to have the protection follow the thing we are trying to protect; for example, if it is moving to a more northerly location. We have seen evidence that commercial fish stocks are beginning to appear in more northerly locations. We think that other, non-commercial species may also move north to follow the colder water. Yes, I believe we can do that.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Cronin. I can see from what he and his colleagues are telling us, and what I have read here, that a great amount of work has gone into this and all angles have been considered. I thank him for that work. Does Deputy Ó Broin wish to come back in?

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Yes. I thank the Chair. I apologise, again, for having to leave as we have a clash with the Minister, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, in the Chamber, which is unfortunate. I am going to go back over some of my questions. If our witnesses have dealt with them in my absence, please do not repeat the replies. Let me know, and I will read these replies in the transcripts because I do not want to be wasting their time.

I have a follow-up question on the expert body. At this stage, has the Department decided what the process for appointment will be? Will it be direct appointment by the Minister or the Public Appointments Service, or will there be some other mechanism to appoint? Do the officials envisage the legislation being quite explicit in respect of the kinds of expertise which will be required so that it is fully constituted in that regard?

On the question of designation, which may already have been answered, what is the timeline for designation? Assuming that the legislation is passed within an appropriate time here, and commenced, when does the Department hope to begin to start making designations and what is the kind of notional timeline for that?

I want to return to head 14(5)(a). I do not remember the exact phrase used by Mr. Cronin but he talked about how we are fortunate in having a very large marine area and said that there is enough space for everybody, in a manner of speaking. Clearly, head 14(5)(a) is designed for a set of circumstances in which there is a conflict and some kind of activity which has been previously granted may not comply with conservation objectives. How will a decision be made to allow an activity which does not comply to continue? Will such a decision be open to review, to third-party intervention, etc.?

I am sure other colleagues have already raised the question of enforcement. A key aspect of all these things is not just having a very good system for designation, which we all want, and meeting the 30% as quickly as possible, but also ensuring that there is proper enforcement. We have some designations currently, as mentioned by our guest speakers. There will be a view out there in many communities and organisations that our enforcement of the existing designations in certain locations can be very poor.

Then there is the question I have asked about the environmental capacity of the Naval Service. Is some kind of co-operation, particularly between the Marine Institute and the navy in respect of enforcement, required?

If our guests have dealt with monitoring, I ask them to refer me to the transcripts. I am particularly interested in what is going to be monitored. Is the network going to be monitored? Will that happen every six years? What about the requirement, for example, to monitor the MPAs individually every seven years, as is required? Who will do that and how will it be resourced?

I have two supplementary questions. If our guest speakers have dealt with restoration, I ask them to summarise what they have said already because it is a very important issue, particularly in those areas which have been previously designated but not necessarily properly maintained. Much of this comes down to the size of the data. We all know that our database is pretty weak. That is no criticism of anybody from the Department, but relates to the full extent of what we are trying to designate and protect. Is it our guests’ understanding that additional resources will be going into the constant need to improve and expand the scientific knowledge and database for the designations and, as mentioned by Mr. Cronin, the potential shifting of those designations?

The last point is that we will listen to other bodies. Some of those bodies are well resourced and professional. Others, particularly inshore fishermen, who have had a hard time over recent decades, have always told us when we talk to them that they struggle to engage with some of these processes because they are technical and complex, and these people are busy catching fish to keep their families fed with roofs over their heads. Those interests are vital to public participation and, in many ways, are aligned with the need to protect biodiversity, because if it is done right, there is a mutual benefit for our ecosystems and for coastal communities and their economic livelihoods. How do we make sure that those constituent parts are involved and brought to the centre of the process? We know that engaging with some of those groups is a challenge in itself, through no fault of their own, because of their capacity. I am particularly interested in hearing about the witnesses' engagement with smaller inshore fishing communities that could be negatively impacted by many of the changes we may see in the marine in the future years. Most of us on the committee would like to avoid that.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I ask my colleague, Dr. O'Higgins, to address the development of the expert body. We had much more text that we took out because of the regulation. I will then address some other issues that the Deputy raised and say where I provided information already.

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

We have given much thought to the constitution of the expert body. The processes and procedures that we have considered are probably too complicated to include in primary legislation, so we think it will be done by ministerial order. We will work out the exact machinations of that at a later date but we have done considerable thinking on it.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I did not address head 14(5)(a) previously. The qualification threshold for the invocation of that sort of clause needs to be worked on further.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Does Mr. Cronin hope for the qualification threshold or elements of it to be set out in legislation?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Yes.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Does Mr. Cronin envisage it as a process whereby third parties might have an opportunity for input without making it overly cumbersome or time-consuming?

Mr. Richard Cronin

I am not sure I can commit to going into that level of detail but this overriding public interest clause is a standard clause that is in the habitats directive too. Its inclusion and use may be separate issues. We have recognised in our reading of this that it needs further qualification in some way. The objective here, through things like the development policy statement, is to avoid those spatial conflicts as much as possible.

There was one question about restoration that I hoped to answer before the Deputy left. Restoration as an activity or conservation objective is completely acceptable. The short answer is that it can be done. If one has identified that a habitat is in a low condition and wants to move it to a better condition, restoration is the way to do that. The question is whether it is a natural restoration process or an active restoration process. In some of the exchanges we had this morning, we talked about the planting of seagrass meadows. That is active restoration and intervention. Passive restoration might just involve the removal of a pressure and allowing something to recover. Restoration can be included as one of the outcomes after looking at the state of the habitat or species and where one wants it to be and what the objective is.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

With respect to that, one thing that we have learned from terrestrial planning and our long consideration of issues around substitute consent is that while many things are possible, unless legislation sets them out and, in certain circumstances, mandates either exploration or potential recommendation of them, they are less likely to happen. While we may finally have a substitute consent regime for the land that does not fall foul of domestic and European law, we will have to wait and see if that is the case. Where substitute consents are granted and, in the period when the activity took place, there was significant damage, whether relating to the environment or other activities, restoration very rarely features. My question is not about whether it is possible because it is clearly possible. Will the legislation set out in any detail or even mention the issue of restoration? I raise that with respect to either existing designations that have not been adhered to because of poor enforcement or to areas where MACs have been issued and we want offshore wind. In between the granting of the MAC, the tests, the planning applications and the designation, notwithstanding the interim work Mr. Cronin described earlier, things may have gone wrong, even if that was not the intention. Will the legislation set out any provision with respect to restoration?

It is all very well to talk about restoration but who funds it and how is it funded? Some legislative elements to that could be helpful, particularly if it relates to somebody with a licence or consent who has done something wrong and should be funding restoration. Is there a legal power to compel that person to do so, within reason and with appropriate safeguards?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We can certainly make provision or reference to the need to restore, if necessary, but there are two pieces of information that I will give to the committee. Under the polluter pays principle and the environmental liability directive, if there is damage, it falls to the person who damages or pollutes to address it. These are public goods and if people make a private profit from them, they have an obligation to society in general. The second point is that all activity must comply with the environmental target set out in the marine strategy framework directive, which is to achieve good environmental status everywhere, all the time. There may be some discussion about lowering those standards for emergency designations for offshore wind under European regulations, but nevertheless, the general rule is that we have good quality, so damage is not acceptable. Sustainable use is required. Sustainable in this case means that we can restore it.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I accept all that. I will make one other analogy. We have much experience of terrestrial planning and building control. There are bad practices in our recent past that we need to learn from. For example, people who build buildings on land have a legal obligation to build in compliance with the standards. Two weeks ago, the Government announced a €2.5 billion bill for the taxpayer because of non-compliance. Even though there were clear standards and legal obligations, with the absence of adequate enforcement, particularly to ensure that non-compliance is then rectified by those responsible, one would have thought that there was an opportunity with this legislation to ensure strong mechanisms so that if somebody fails to comply, there is not only a legal obligation but a mechanism to ensure that people rectify and restore the damage. That is really what I am asking.

Mr. Richard Cronin

We can take that into account. I was about to give a big description of the enforcement but I see where the Deputy is coming from. We can look at that issue.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

As somebody who has been so involved with building defects, I will labour the point. We now have a €5 billion bill for building defects, both defective blocks and houses, apartments and duplexes. We have had good building control standards over the years. There is a legal obligation for people to comply and there is a mechanism if they do not comply to take them to court but it is such a long, cumbersome and expensive process that it virtually never happens. There are opportunities for us here. We want this legislation to be the strongest and most robust possible. I emphasise that not for further comment but as something that we will look at carefully when the legislation is before us. I am sorry for cutting across Mr. Cronin.

Mr. Richard Cronin

The Deputy made a few other points. One was about the timeline for designations. I would love to have them all designated. We as a team would love to have had them all designated quite a while ago. We are conscious of the priorities of other sectors in their roll-out of activities in the sea. We are also conscious of the 2030 deadline and the missed 2020 deadline. The safest answer I can give is "as soon as possible". If I could get more specific, the objective of the policy statement was to create a greater level of certainty about what is most important to do immediately. For example, we can look at where renewable energy is likely to go and go through our process in as timely a way as possible so that we can bring certainty.

Where do we think we need to fulfil the programme for Government for things like a marine national park or large mammals that are not fully protected? I made reference to one or two rare species or habitats that are threatened. That list should be made. I would be reluctant to call it prioritisation because then one would have deprioritisation. One would bring greater certainty to the timeline of delivery for those. One can say then, with confidence, that we will hit 30%, we will fulfil our obligation, it will be meaningful and we will bring certainty to the sectors that are really looking for that certainty so they can make better decisions and invest. That is what we will be looking at.

Earlier we mentioned timelines. We have tried in the use of timelines to bring greater certainty to that but we know, in our read through of this, once approval from Government came through, that we need to do a lot more work on tidying up those timeless to create that level of clarity.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Department would not find an objection from most committee members to the idea of priorities because the Department cannot do all of this work at the same time. In areas where there are MACs or other potential significant economic marine activities, there are two values of clear priorities. First, it avoids accidental or intentional additional marine biodiversity degradation as a result of infrastructural developments. It also provides greater clarity for applicants, for example, for offshore wind. Many of us made the point, when we dealt with the planning legislation for the marine, is public or private sector interests that want to deliver large volumes of offshore wind will also benefit from the certainty that the MPAs will provide, subject to them being done right, and the likelihood of legal challenge and delay will be reduced. That is a greater level of certainty about who can do what, where and under what conditions. I cannot speak for other committee members but if the Department is saying to us that the prioritisations, for example, legacy wind farm projects on the east coast, should be prioritised for all the right reasons, and a number of other ones, that would be a sensible approach.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I am not sure whether the Deputy was in the room when I provided the information that in December we commenced a sensitivity analysis using the experts from the original advisory group.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Yes, I caught that.

Mr. Richard Cronin

That involved Professor Crowe and a team of other experts. We have recognised that piece on the Irish Sea for legacy sites and we will see public consultation launching for further sites as well. We have seen the potential locations. Now, our thought processes are about how would we bring more certainty to those so that we would de-risk those choices and bring that layer of environmental or ecological information to the decision-making process. Even without the legislation having gone through the process of enactment, we know this piece of work must be done.

The Deputy asked about the enforcement and capacity of the Naval Service. I answered a question from Deputy O'Callaghan on that but let me know if, in the transcript, Deputy Ó Brien feels that it is not enough.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Did Mr. Cronin refer to the involvement of Marine Institute or bodies with environmental expertise?

Mr. Richard Cronin

Yes.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I will check the transcript. Perfect.

Mr. Richard Cronin

We did, yes. I was clear that the Marine Institute had no enforcement power but it does have other data gathering and information collation powers. We already have an arrangement with the Marine Institute where we work quite closely with it on the delivery of our services, and other services across government. Perhaps the Deputy can check the transcript.

The next issues were data, databases and resources. We have identified a need for resources. Once a site is established, there must be periodic monitoring that has money and people involved. We have identified, on our side, a need for more resources in our team to deliver this. We are developing a workforce plan to expand the size of this team to do that. We are reviewing our service level agreement with the Marine Institute. We are going to apply for EU L’Instrument Financier pour l’Environnement, LIFE, funding to support that expansion of delivery. We are doing as much as we can about resources.

On the data issue, in head 25 we have the idea of findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable or FAIR data. We have recognised this need to get the information out there so there is transparency around the reuse of the information that we gather for this process. There are other data initiatives ongoing and I made reference to the use of non-scientific information in the development of decisions around designation, which are: traditional knowledge and the experiences of local communities. This will be very important, particularly in terms of the legitimacy of the choices that are made.

The Deputy made a point about the engagement of fishers and mentioned inland fishers. Before he returned I described the consultation process up until the publication of the public consultation report so the design of the expert report. We have spoken directly with all fisheries groups. We have identified them based on their representative bodies. We have engaged with them and sought nominations for them to engage through a representative from their body. We have a very neutral approach and do not have a view on any of the sectors. We just shepherd the whole process forward and we must design the participation so that it works for them. I do not have a direct answer for the Deputy now about how this will work for them, particularly around their resource issue. We, however, need to think about how we design engagement with them so that they can participate in a way, time and style that suits them. We have identified, in the design of this EU funding bid that we have sought to submit later this year, that engagement piece so that is who do we get to go and deal with them.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The requirement is not consultation but meaningful consultation, which is a different kettle of fish. Many of us are in large organisations that have the capacity to have researchers help us to be informed when we come into forums such as this. Large industry bodies, whether they are fisheries industries or offshore wind, have those capacities as does large environmental NGOs. Very often communities or small economic interests like inshore fishermen or fisher people do not have that capacity. While I accept that the Department is and should be neutral with respect to the sectors, it should not be neutral in ensuring that the consultation engagement is meaningful. If there are certain sectors, whether they are coastal communities - and unfortunately I am very far away from Dublin Bay and I do not represent a constituency but the Chairman does - we must ensure that communities are able to meaningfully engage and likewise with inshore fishermen. When, for example, we were doing the national marine planning framework, one of the things that those two groups of people told us was that there were lots of meetings but, in many instances, they felt when they went to meetings that they were effectively excluded by the language of documentation, the nature of the consultation and the technical expert level required so they are consulted but not in any meaningful way. Some thought needs to be put in that and I will explain why. My long experience of planning is as follows: the greater the level of public participation and sectoral participation, at the earliest possible stage, removes all sorts of concerns and problems as one goes down the line, and avoids that more adversarial nature that we find in terrestrial planning where people only engage at the point in which there is an application to the board, MARA or whatever. That is my observation.

I had one other question on monitoring and the network versus the MPAs, the timelines, etc.

Mr. Richard Cronin

On participation, we aim to go beyond meaningful consultation and our objective is full participation.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Excellent.

Mr. Richard Cronin

There is a participation ladder for these things. A sign in the post office window is the lowest rung in the ladder and one is just going to ignore it instead. Ownership of the process is at the very top. Our objective is to travel quite a way up that ladder and we believe that is the right way to do it. We are aware of the different capacities both in terms of the organisational size and how they engage. In all the work we have done we have been mindful of doing that. We are all experts on this side of the table but we are conscious that the people with whom we are engaging with are not. The only way we are going to be successful is being mindful that we are doing this in a collaborative way. This is really a reflection of the fact that unless this is designed for everybody, by everybody, then it will remain a scientific exercise that will not improve the health of the environment and will not change people's attitudes towards it. The Deputy and the Department share the same position going forward with that.

We have also engaged with other Government Departments, such as the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media and the Department of Rural and Community Development, on how best to do that. We believe that public participation networks will be a useful template to tap into. The second question was on monitoring.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

It was on monitoring post-designation. I am asking about monitoring of the network and the individual marine protected areas. Who is doing it and how is it being done? What level of resourcing is there for that?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We already have a national marine monitoring plan that has been running since 2013. This is under the marine strategy framework directive. The monitoring of marine protected areas will be a monitoring subprogramme under that plan. This monitoring programme covers litter, noise, pollutants, the intensity of fishing activities, the state of biodiversity and other matters. The status and health of these designated sites will fall under that programme. That monitoring programme is funded through our Vote and the Votes of other Government Departments and agencies that have specific responsibilities. There is also EU funding for things like the data collection framework for the Common Fisheries Policy. That monitoring framework is already in place. If we need to increase the amount of monitoring on these sites, we will have to provide for that through our wider monitoring plan under the marine strategy framework directive. Article 11 is the specific piece that creates this obligation. It is important to include it under that because we then have a wider framework of all the monitoring we do, which puts this monitoring in context. If there is a problem with the status of the site, other monitoring, such as the monitoring of pollutants and human activities, will help us to identify the cause of that problem. We have that other wider monitoring network. That will be resourced as well. The second part of the question was about-----

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Again, what is being monitored? Is it the network? Is it individual marine protected areas or portions of them? How is the monitoring envisaged?

Mr. Richard Cronin

With regard to the network of marine protected areas, each site is monitored in respect of its own status. The monitoring of a wider network is about what the network does as the sites interact with one another. As the Deputy was coming into the room, I was describing to the Chair how, in a network of sites for large mammals such as whales, there might be hundreds of kilometres between sites. The network might be pan-Atlantic. On the other hand, a network of sites for something that is fixed to the sea floor like oyster beds, mussel beds or cold-water corals would be much more discrete. The network and an understanding of how its components are related to each other will have to be developed using the scientific advice of the expert body. If we have questions on matters like these that we do not have full answers to now, we feel the advice from the expert body will be ideal because that body will have both the authority and capacity to get the best information on how to do things.

It is worth mentioning to the committee that there is still not full scientific consensus with regard to how connected or coherent the wider Atlantic network is. It is there from a coverage point of view but, at the moment, we still cannot say scientifically how connected it is. We can monitor the sites, interconnect them and communicate outside the Irish network to the Atlantic network in respect of species that travel to Scotland, Portugal, the Faroe Islands and the Azores. However, if we do not have an answer, we will have to work on developing an approach.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I have one finally supplementary question on that. If I remember correctly, when we were dealing with the national marine planning framework, one of the debates we had was on whether the overall policy approach of the framework and all of the bits that fit into it, including marine protected areas, was adopting a full ecosystem and whole site approach rather than just identifying individual species or individual components of the ecosystem and protecting those. From what Mr. Cronin is saying, it seems the approach is a full ecosystem and whole site approach, which goes beyond the legal requirements to protect certain individual species or habitats and considers the interrelationship of the whole ecosystem. I am quite reassured by Mr. Cronin's answers to a number of my questions but I also live in the real world and know that other sections in the witnesses' Department and other Government Departments may have competing priorities that conflict with their own. If their answer to my question on the whole site and ecosystem approach is "Yes", to what extent will that be the approach across all of the different sections in Departments?

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will ask Dr. O'Higgins to respond on the issue of the ecosystem-based approach.

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

The ecosystem-based approach is supposed to integrate the connections between land, air, water, all living things, human beings and their institutions. This approach is common to both the marine spatial planning directive and the marine strategy framework directive. It is an underlying common principle in marine spatial planning and environmental protection. Our approach will certainly be an ecosystem-based approach and will also speak to the matter of planning. The intention is to have a unified approach. It is quite an ambitious aim but it is certainly our intention.

Chairman

I will go back to enforcement for a moment to clarify something. Deputy Ó Broin may wish to come back in on this because it is a point he raised. The Maritime Area Regulatory Authority will have responsibility for enforcement in consented or permitted area where development is going on. Where a marine protected area is within one of these development zones, will MARA have a responsibility to enforce the objectives of the marine protected area? For areas where MARA is not involved and we just have a designated marine protected area in which no consented or permitted licensed activities are going on, who is responsible for enforcement? I am just seeking clarity on those two different types of sites.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I will ask Dr. O'Higgins to answer that but this is something our team has talked about quite a lot.

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

There are several management authorities managing different activities within the marine environment. There are aquaculture sites, offshore renewable energy developments and dumping at sea. There are already different management authorities. Under this legislation, recommendations will be identified first. Measures that need to be taken by actors or sectors in the environment to meet the conservation objectives of a particular site will be identified. The management authority for the activity in question will be responsible for ensuring those measures are taken. That is the way it will work.

Chairman

For my benefit, will Dr. O'Higgins list some of those agencies? MARA will be one and a local authority might be another.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

May I qualify the Chair's question in a way that would be really helpful for us and for others? This obviously sits in a wider architecture. It would be really useful if Dr. O'Higgins could describe the bits of that architecture. We have management authorities, enforcement authorities, monitoring obligations, the Department, MARA, the board and the local authorities. It would be really nice if we could try to situate what is in this general scheme within the overall architecture. A PhD might be needed to tell us that.

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

It is very complicated and there are a lot of moving parts and I do have a PhD.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I apologise. I meant a PhD in the history of what I am looking at, which is big and complicated.

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

It is something that I have looked at quite carefully. The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for the water framework directive, which applies to coastal waters, and for dumping at sea. The Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority has competence for managing Irish fishing. Inland Fisheries Ireland manages coastal fisheries. We in the Department have responsibility for the marine strategy framework directive. Our colleagues in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage are responsible for marine spatial planning. There are also the authorities for terrestrial planning and MARA. There are a lot of moving parts. It is a dynamic situation. Not everything has settled yet. In designing this legislation, we have tried to ensure that all of those parts fit together and to make it broad enough that they will still gel as things change.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I apologise, Chair, but-----

Chairman

The Deputy may go ahead. This is the kind of direction I wanted to go in with this question.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

If I were standing on the coast near a marine protected area and I thought something was in breach of the designation, who would I call?

Dr. Tim O'Higgins

It would depend on the sector. It would depend on whether the Deputy saw a boat fishing or a dog fouling on the beach. It would depend on the nature of the activity and the infringement.

Mr. Conall O'Connor

Specific management authorities will be assigned to specific marine protected areas according to what is happening.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Who are they likely to be?

Mr. Conall O'Connor

If it is something out at sea, it might be the Naval Service. If it is closer in, it could be the National Parks and Wildlife Service or the local authority. The Deputy asked what would happen if a certain activity breaches the conservation objectives of the area. If an authority licenses or permits an activity in a marine protected area under the legislation, it will have to be cognisant of the conservation objectives. These will have to be accommodated in the permitting or licensing of the activity in the area. The organisation responsible for issuing the licences or permits will also have to be responsible for ensuring the conditions are met. There will be times when there will be regulations. A range of potential management authorities has been set out under head 15. The appropriate one will be set out. If an activity is regulated by a Minister, it will be that management authority, or the authorised persons it might contact, that will be responsible for its enforcement. This is separate from an activity that has received a permit from another body.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

With the discretion of the Chair-----

Chairman

Is Deputy Ó Broin going to ask about an unregulated activity?

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Let us learn some lessons from terrestrial planning. A local authority grants planning permission and there is an obligation on the person who has been granted that permission to build according to the plan. For example, if a local authority provides a licence for quarrying, there is an obligation on the person to quarry in accordance with the licence. The first issue is whether the legislation will explicitly mandate the managing authority to follow up and ensure compliance. This is not what happens with our planning system. If South Dublin County Council awards planning permission, the person to whom it is awarded has to comply but there is no legal requirement for the local authority to check. It is only if a third party formal planning complaint is made to the planning authority that somebody goes out to inspect. This is a difficult enough process and there is only one person to whom I can pick up the phone. If a regular member of the public or somebody who does not know the complexity of the system I have just described firmly believes there is a problem, he or she will not know who is responsible for what activity. If I come across an emergency on the street tomorrow, I do not have to work out whether I need the police or the ambulance. I just ring 999 and that service works it out for me. I know I am simplifying the matter. The only reason I am saying this is that enforcement only works if it is clear and straightforward. From what has been described, this sounds as though it will be a very complex system. Will there be a legal obligation on the management authorities to ensure compliance? Will we design a system for people who are not the management authorities? There will be a lot of interest in this and we all want compliance. How do we make sure people can engage and interact with it, from the regular citizen or small community group to the mid-sized NGO or Member of the Oireachtas?

Chairman

Under the Maritime Area Planning Act, local authorities are responsible for the area to three miles out. I would imagine that 99% of the observations that may be made by members of the public will be from the land or close to the shore. If people phone a local authority to say they think something is going on with regard to the environment or planning, the local authority is probably best placed to know whether somewhere is a designated site or whether something is a permitted activity. It will have that information to give to people. Is that the best route to take on this?

Mr. Richard Cronin

We will take this away and consider further how we will articulate it. In our thinking on this, we considered participation and the publicity about a site. In the Deputy's absence we spoke about how we would have signage around a site. This is for coastal sites. Over the horizon a particular group of people would be involved and the monitoring systems for these can be much more specific with satellites and radio signals. For coastal sites we originally thought of having a wider level of information or greater awareness among the public that they are looking at a marine protected area, including a list of what is being protected, stating the reasons for that and providing information on who they should contact if things go wrong. How to code this into legislation might be difficult. The point the Deputy has made is one we will take away and consider. The point of view of someone who wants to raise an alert about non-compliance is not something we have fully described. Perhaps it would be useful.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Yesterday, another committee dealt with the issue of short-term letting. Some years ago, we dealt with new planning regulations on change of use. It was very straightforward and the rules are very clear. A short-term let for a specific period of time in a particular type of building requires a change of use planning application on certain occasions. The problem was that the enforcement regime was never thought through. We have very clear regulations and no meaningful way of enforcing them. Three years later, the Government is trying to put in place a new enforcement regime. I mention this to highlight that greater thought on how we have an enforcement regime that will work in the real world is key. There are many good lessons for this from what has not worked in terrestrial planning.

One of the reasons our building control does not place an obligation on State agencies to enforce compliance is that it would place a liability on the State. Building control legislation, and this is a matter on the record from when it was passing through the Oireachtas many years ago, is very explicit that we could not have compliance ultimately falling back on a State agency because if something went wrong, the State would be on the hook. As taxpayers now know, even when the State is not on the hook, it still has to pay the Bill. There is an argument to say it is not just about having a standard but also stating who is legally mandated to ensure compliance. If something is not legally mandated, it will be left to complicated procedures and our experience on land is that they do not work, even with the best will in the world or the best design intention. This is just an observation.

Mr. Richard Cronin

I can reply if the Deputy wishes but it is also an observation.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

Absolutely, if Mr. Cronin has some thoughts on the matter.

Mr. Richard Cronin

When we are creating a power such as this we ask how we can consolidate. The consolidation of power in one Minister is often difficult to achieve. If we look at how we have tried to structure management, reporting and compliance with the plan there is a graduated approach to enforcement so that eventually we have a single instructing power that can state it must be done in a particular way. We have attempted to do this but in a way that allows the current competent bodies to retain their competence. Just as with any environmental standard they have an obligation to comply with it as it effects them. This is the nature of the system.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

I am not even making the case for a single authority or agency because I understand it is not that straightforward. What I am making the case for, particularly at the early stages when there are multiple agencies or authorities, is having one place where anybody can go to be told what is appropriate. The Chair's point is a good one. There may be a single point of contact in a geographical area that can divert people to the correct agency. I do not have a PhD and I would struggle to repeat the configuration of agencies that has just been outlined.

As such, I can imagine how a member of the public would struggle. It is not that they are not experts but they will not know this terrain.

Chairman

I was about to wrap up the meeting but Deputy Gould arrived just in time.

Deputy Thomas Gould

As members are running in and out of meetings, I apologise if some of my questions have been answered. I have concerns about enforcement, an issue raised by Deputy Cian O'Callaghan, and who will have that role.

Chairman

We have just spent the past minutes some time discussing that subject and we covered it well.

Deputy Thomas Gould

Was head 14 discussed?

Chairman

It was raised by Deputy Ó Broin regarding non-compliance and pre-existing.

Deputy Thomas Gould

I will read the transcript. Deputy Ó Broin and I will also discuss the matter and hopefully come back with more questions next week.

Chairman

For Deputy Gould's benefit, as I am not sure if he was here, we said we would meet user groups next week and environmental groups the following week. We may seek a briefing session at which the committee can provide feedback. We would like to proceed then to compile our pre-legislative scrutiny report to allow the Bill to be put together. Is that okay with members?

Deputy Thomas Gould

I heard a reference to the three pillars and access to justice. We will read the responses and hopefully we can work together. We will talk again next week.

Chairman

I appreciate that. I thank Mr. Cronin, Dr. Ó Cadhla, Dr. O’Higgins and Mr. O’Connor for their engagement in this three-hour session. It has been helpful and informative for members. I also thank them for the considerable work they put into getting this proposal to this stage. Members appreciate it and we will not delay in playing our part in enacting this legislation in order that we can protect our seas and restore our precious marine environment. I also thank members for their attendance.

The joint committee adjourned at 11.52 a.m. until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 31 January 2023.