Mattie McGrath criticises Maritime Area Bill, warns on fishing

The Maritime Area Planning Bill 2021 seeks to provide a legislative framework for a new, streamlined development consent process for activities in the Maritime Area, including offshore renewable energy. The establishment of a new agency, the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority, or MARA, I remember the man who used to be referred to on Scrap Saturday, PJ Managal, a friend of mine actually, but I hope this won't be some other, you know, we have so many of these quangos now, and agencies, and if the last can come, I don't mean to address it a small bit, we have the Marine County Investigation Board out there, totally unfit for purpose. Two young men from my constituency, that drowned 11 years ago now, off of Helvick, and no proper investigation, and we were inquiring on it, nobody with seagoing experience is on that board, nobody, there's every kind of a hanger-on, or what do you call them, you know, a political appointee, but nobody with seagoing experience, so it's imperative, if this Mara has been set up, it won't be shouting at Mara, as we have back in the past, that it has people, know what they're doing, I know nothing about offshore wind energy, but I'm all for it, but I'm for also to try and ensure that, I had earlier a deputy saying, that the stocks, our stocks might be replenished, because some of the bigger boats might be able to come into a certain area, and that should have been looked at years ago. Our fishing industry has been wiped out, totally wiped out, and to see the compensation scheme, Minister of your own constituency, I remember when Carlow's sugar factory closed, and then, it was moved to Mallow, and I had a huge engagement with the people moving it, because there was massive equipment, and I went through Tipperary and problems all over the place, and, look, I apologise to the contractor, after the whole delay, three or four days, trying to get to the town of care, and he said, if the truth be known, he said, I'm moving it closer to the hall bowl and the scrapyard, close it into the Mallow, and Mallow was gone shortly afterwards, and that loss of that valuable industry, so we lost the fishing industry, we're not learning from our mistakes, it's all but lost, it's lost, it's gone, and your compensation scheme, what good is compensation, for people whose life is at the sea, whose life is at work from the sea, and who's providing jobs and spin-off jobs, and above all, providing food for our people, and the people who want to visit our shores, so what's gone wrong? I mean, that board, and I know there's a review at the moment, but it's a token review of the MCE, Marine, Maritime Investigation Casualty Board, Marine Casualty Investigation Board, but look, it's not fit for purpose, so, who's going to be on this? He said, more party cronies, to be up between the three parties, or somebody might lobby from abroad, might send texts to get on it, because they know somebody, this was wrong here. Minister, we're trading with this diesel gas power supply for our country, I was in contact with air grid, you know, last spring, to be taught, with two orange and two amber less in the fall last year, without doubt, we're going to be lushing to the aquas this year, there's already been unexplained power cuts in different towns, and the areas that people are going on to me, short, albeit, but the damage that that does to equipment, gypped, especially equipment, without notice, I mean, it's bad, nothing comes if a swan or something, which can happen in my own area, hits the power lines, accidentally, or a storm, or an act of God, but wouldn't we have to turn it off? And you're closing down peat stations, and not replenishing the supply, so we're trying to rush here, by setting up this agency, and bringing power with this legislation. So, we definitely need to utilise, God knows we have enough of an area of sea around our country, and I have the figures here, which I don't think I have time to go into, but I have them here, in research, massive, shall we know it, we're an island country, small island country, and, but we're losing our destiny, as a nation, a sovereign nation, we have lost it, we've sold it, we don't know who owns these big country numbers, who are going to come in developing this, and, and, I heard Deputy Darragh Kileary, who I have great respect for, mention about the community, community, the community developments, and the same happened with the turbines, and there was huge angst and excitement in my constituency, because they were all out of town developers, and big companies, and they were doing the development, and, you know, they thought they could, just like Cromwell, nearly, nearly take over the county of Tipperary, when Cromwell came over the Vee from Port Lauderdale, you know the area, look down on the plains of South Tipperary, golden veil, what a land worth conquering is that, and some of these companies think the same, they think the same, and they treat people then with disdain, they don't consult, they don't engage, and there's no bottoms up, and there's no engagement, or bottoms up with the, with the, with the community, so I'm all for community, community, for Port, and local people, and the male spirit, but we've gone away from it, I see two meetings in our own county in recent days, trying to revitalise our villages, public meetings held at the bottom, because they have been denuded, cleaned out, shops closed, pubs closed, everything closed, and the way the housing policy is going now, and we can't build houses, it's helping everybody into the city, so look, on this specific piece of legislation, I will work with you constructively, but as I said, Minister Verhausen brought forward a bill here before Christmas, a simple, sorry, another part of this, and it didn't even go through pre-led scrutiny, this is not the way to deal with issues like this, I've listened to the last town caller, and others, you know, that know more about this than I do, and talked about the fears that they have, regarding, you know, big cupboards when they come in, and have this Mara, and the other agencies, have the power to police it, they have no authority to go out on the sea, and they have no equipment to go out on the sea, to deal with the marine casualty investigation board, so they do desktop studies, so desktops with these big companies, very dangerous, and I must go back to say the whole policy around our renewables and our energy has gone daft, the price of ESP has gone huge, hugely expensive, and I am told that in Lanesboro you are dismantling a peat processing plant, and it has been exposed to Germany, and being put into re-operation as a peat processing plant out there, I mean, I am all for the climate change and being sensitive of a green policy, but this is daft, we are closing down, we are cutting off, or trying our two hands behind our back, and nearly blindfolding us, we will be daft in the winter, we will be fumbling around trying to feel our way, or back to the candles, but this is not the answer. Sustainable local involvement by community groups must be nurtured and supported, and we should take chapters from the different pieces of legislation across the water in England, where they have community gain in all planning applications, and as Deputy Colin said before me, my colleague in Rural Independence said that how he knows that the fish farms and the merits of them can be aggregated elsewhere, that's what the planning authorities are for, but for any decision to take 10 years, it is archaic, so no developer is going to wait, and then we have the situation in your constituency, minister, where our friends in Antarctica are holding up a very fabulous, splendid, pristine, clean company to process our milk into cheese that is needed, with a company from a Dutch company as partners, and for the fourth time, they are going back to the courts, and they are going to go to the European Corp, I thought. Where are the Antarctica's when these people, where are the Antarctica's when we are allowed all these data companies to come in here, and make the ordinary public pay for the ESP firm, by the reverse charges? This is crazy stuff. So we are crucified, and as I mentioned, the late Oliver Crummel, we are going back to the people to make them paupers again. Pay up, shut up, stay quiet. And the last 18 months, we have terrorised them, locked them down completely, so our freedoms have been denied to us, but in this area, are we going to allow, we have allowed the fishing industry, sorry, to go like the beet industry, but are we going to allow these big offshore companies to come in, we don't have the expertise, I know the suspected department officials here, probably no proper expertise, you know, dealing with it either, so we need to get in the right people, and expertise, we need to get the right people on this mare, as I said, because if we don't, we are pilling against the wind, we are talking about wind energy here, and you know, we could create a lot, I think that Cancola, but maybe all the hot air was broken here last night, to nearly power the place for a week, if we could capture it and use it, and you know, that often happens in here, but I am asking you, Minister, you are a Green Party member, I respect for you, but the policies are on your head, and we have data companies using such quantities of electricity, and we are betting more of them, we are boasting of them, and there is a building coming round today's road, the Cancola policies as well as I do, which is massive, massive, and we can't get an in-house built, or a building log cabin, and we can't build log cabins anymore, we can't cut the trees, so, I mean, I said this just in the morning here, that when somebody plants any crop, they are entitled to harvest it, you shouldn't have to be getting a license to harvest a crop of trees, you have to wait in 25, 30 years, but on this bill, I look forward to engaging you, which your Minister is, and I did ask you, the Deputy Consumers, I was lamenting the fact that you were in West Cork, and you never met him, and I told him, that is disrespectful to any raucous member, but it has happened all the time, but you did promise to visit the wonderful Narcofti house in Narcofti domain, the former home of El Dunamore, who was kind to the IRA men on the run, and looked after them, and left the train and fed them, and the house now has been plundered, and you did promise to come and see it, so I beg you, that you do come and see it, because it won't survive another winter. Good morning. One day. One day. One day. One day. One day. One day. We need all things to have been successful. One day. One day. One day. One day.