The need for these designations to come before the Houses of the Oireachtas is absolutely critical because I do not trust this Government not to bully its way through on things it wants, over the legitimate concerns of stakeholders, in these decisions. I want to highlight again an instance of this, which is very relevant and happened in the last few weeks. Fishers in Dublin Bay, who have been fishing for a very long time and earning their living, have been bullied in the most disgraceful way by EirGrid. EirGrid wanted to do a survey and, without any consultation with the fishers, sent them a notice a week or two before the survey instructing them to get their fishing pots out of the water because it was going to do a survey. The consequences were that the fishers were taken to court. They were terrified. These are hard-working people who had never been in a courtroom in their lives. They were terrified and were landed with costs. I was talking to one of them just now. He was one of the named people against whom Eirgrid took the case and they were talking about €80,000 in costs being made against these fishers. This is outrageous. I raised it a couple of weeks ago in the Dáil. The whole issue is that there is supposed to be consultation, but to me this shows the high-handed attitude that State bodies can have, rather than actually having a process where everybody is heard. One imperative to develop offshore renewable energy is that it is not supposed to displace other industries. That is my understanding of EU directives in this regard. Other people's livelihoods are not supposed to be displaced in the process of critical infrastructure being developed. In this case, what is doubly infuriating about it all is who will be the beneficiaries of these developments for which the State is going to run the infrastructure, the cables and so on. Is it the State or the taxpayer? No, it is private companies like the French state and other European companies that have got the licences for a lot of these sites, which the developers selected. They were not done on the basis of benefit to the State. Do not get me wrong, we need offshore renewable wind and we need it on the east coast, but it should be done on the basis of the most appropriate and suitable sites. It should not happen at the expense of other people's livelihoods, biodiversity and sensitive environments like the sandbanks. These are very rich environments and the spawning grounds for fish, shellfish and so on. They are also the main area where phytoplankton, which produces oxygen, is found. One of the main sources of oxygen and one of the main carbon sinks are sandbanks. If the Government is concerned about protecting marine biodiversity and having the marine protected areas, it should want to designate such areas. Instead, it wants to give it all away to private developers to make profit out of our natural resources at the expense of biodiversity and, in this case, at the expense of the rights of fishers to continue their traditional livelihood. The Government just says, "no, they can select the sites, we will put in the infrastructure for them, and they will run away with the profits". That is what is actually going on. By the way, there is no obligation that the supply will come back to us or that we will benefit in terms of price or anything else from these private concerns that selected their own sites, which the Government gave them the right to do. We are going to pay for the infrastructure. Where have we heard all this before? This is happening on sea, but I have a vague memory that this happened on land as well. In fact, it is the basis of all the rotten corruption that existed in this country in terms of developer-led stuff. The Government will do anything for the developers. What do we get out of it in the end? We get housing that nobody can afford. We get speculation. I suspect the same is going to happen with giving away these sites. It is wide open for the same kind of speculation. We put in the infrastructure for them. We drive the fishers out of the way. We short-circuit any proper planning process. They are the beneficiaries, but they do not actually have to do anything. The Government is leaving it up to them as to whether we will get the offshore renewable energy at all, and they can just sit on it. They can flip it. They do not have to do anything, but the Government has left it in their hands. We are bending over backwards. We are displacing fishers and bullying and threatening them in the courts to the extent that they are fearful that they may lose their houses. That is outrageous. The whole thing is a flipping scandal. We need to develop offshore renewable wind and renewable energy, but it should be us who are doing it. The beneficiaries should be us, the owners of the sites. The site selection should be based on what is best for our Irish society, the environment and biodiversity. The benefits should accrue to the people of Ireland - and, for that matter, the environment - but not to private companies that decide which sites they get and get to run away with profits. We are paying for the infrastructure while short-circuiting the right of stakeholders to actually have any meaningful say in all of this. If they get in the way, they will be bullied and threatened. That is what has happened to the fishers.

Sentiment score: 0.01

It is not agreed.

Sentiment score: -0.21