There will be “no hierarchy” of access to Ireland’s sea areas under its new maritime licensing system, the head of the new Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA) has said.
MARA chief executive officer Laura Brien was speaking at the third annual seafarers’ conference hosted by the National Maritime College of Ireland in Limerick.
Brien also said that other European countries would “kill to have the space” that Ireland enjoys around its coastline.
She was responding to concerns about “spatial squeeze” raised at the conference, held in Limerick on the eve of the Skipper Expo.
Brien said that MARA’s remit was not just about offshore renewable energy (ORE), and licensing it has to approve extends from telecom cables to coastal erosion work to port development.
While there were also concerns that Ireland was lagging behind other countries in ORE development, “the upside to Ireland being late to the party is that…we’ve an awful lot of people to learn from”, including Scotland.
Asked to define "what success would look like" for MARA in ten years' time – a theme of the panel discussion she was participating in – Brien said that she hoped the opportunity would be taken early on to monitor the impact of offshore wind.
“We don’t know about a lot of the impacts of ORE..and we have the opportunity to put in place monitoring of the impact, so that when we get to 2034 we have ten years of data which would provide a solid evidence base for consenting," she said.
Capt Robert McCabe, chair of the national seafood/ORE working group, said that there were many challenges but progress was being made, and all involved were “committed to trying to find resolutions”.
Among issues being discussed was the need for a data hub, as in a one-stop shop for information, while evidence of activity by inshore vessels was also very important in making a case for impact of ORE.