THE GOVERNMENT has invited the public to contribute to an integrated marine plan which would tap into a trillion-euro global market.
Minister for Marine Simon Coveney has said we “need to change the way we in Ireland think about the sea” and look for “new opportunities to harness the potential of our 220-million acre marine resource”.
At Government Buildings in Dublin yesterday, Mr Coveney said: “We want your help to shape our plan, to shape our future and to assist in our drive towards our nation’s economic recovery.”
Currently, the State derives only 1.2 per cent of gross domestic product from what Mr Coveney described as a “vast and diverse marine resource, which covers an area 10 times the size of Ireland’s land mass”.
When the seabed is taken into account, Ireland is one of the largest EU states, he has pointed out, with one of the greatest sea- to-land ratios and a 7,800km coastline, which is longer than that of most European countries.
“Our ocean is a national asset, supporting a diverse marine economy with vast potential to tap into a €1,200 billion global marine market for seafood, tourism, oil and gas, renewable ocean energy and new applications for health, medicine and technology,” Mr Coveney has said.
Since the break-up of the Department of the Marine by former taoiseach Bertie Ahern – a department created by a predecessor Charles Haughey after the sinking of the Kowloon Bridge in 1986 off the southwest coast – responsibility for the sector has been spread across a number of departments and agencies. This had led to enormous frustration and criticism of State policy and practice, or the lack of it.
In 2009, former taoiseach Brian Cowen initiated an interdepartmental body to try to improve co-ordination – or, as one industry leader noted at the time, “find the department that his party lost”.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has outlined his commitment to the sector. He recently opened a new marine research campus and cluster in Cork harbour, involving the Naval Service, University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology and its constituent, the National Maritime College of Ireland at Ringaskiddy.
Together, they aim to build the world’s largest marine renewable energy research centre in the world, named the UCC Beaufort laboratory, by 2013. A year later, they hope to create 70 new research jobs and they plan to house five campus companies by 2015.
The EU is moving towards an integrated maritime approach, but the Government’s new strategy is independent of that, according to the Marine Institute which is leading the public consultation.
To prompt public debate, the institute has prepared a series of questions. These range from whether people feel that the current performance of the sector, at €3.4 billion in turnover and a €2.4 billion take in direct and indirect gross value added, could be substantially improved, to what contributions the private and public sector, the higher education sector and communities could make.
One key question also asks how the interests of competing sectors could be balanced in planning the use of ocean space, and to what extent a maritime spatial plan might assist.