MARA and Ireland’s offshore wind future

 

Can you start by telling us a little about the MARA establishment unit and the work it is doing?

It’s a really exciting time to be in the MARA Establishment Unit, which, at the moment, is a standalone business unit operating within the Planning Division of the Department of Housing, Heritage and Local Government.

MARA’s role will be wide ranging in scope so extensive advance preparatory work is required. Because the Department fully recognises the importance of MARA, a decision was taken several months ago to set up a dedicated unit to lead this critical work.

I’m the head of this new unit and we currently have a team of 11 who will all move for a period of secondment to MARA as an ‘advance team’, ensuring a continuity of the work when MARA is established.

The introduction of the new marine planning regime under the Maritime Area Planning Act marks the most significant reform of marine management in Ireland in decades and MARA will play a pivotal role in this, so the work we’re doing now is really important and exciting for all.

Some of the work we’re focussing on right now includes finalising the corporate identity and branding of MARA, including developing an online presence to enable us to communicate with stakeholders.

Work is also underway on developing a resourcing plan for MARA, assessing the specific skills that will be required to allow the organisation to carry out its functions.

Preparatory work is underway, too, in relation to all the processes and procedures that need as well as in relation to the broader corporate and governance functions.

It was considered previously that activities that require a consent under another Act or from another statutory body would be exempt from obtaining a licence from MARA. Can you update us on the department’s thinking on this?

The Maritime Area Planning Act 2021 mandates a new way of consenting and licensing. This does provide for ‘exempted usage’ whereby the Minister may specify in regulations usages which may be exempted, subject to certain criteria.

Although we are in the early stages of scoping out all of this, it is something which we are keen to explore. We would like to make the licencing regime as efficient as possible.

If regulations are proposed for exempted usage, these will be subject to screening for the Habitats Directive and SEA. However, a usage cannot be exempt if an appropriate assessment or environmental impact assessment is required.

We intend to consult further with relevant stakeholders before any final decisions are taken around exempting certain usages.
While it is important that we streamline the licensing of activities, we also need to be ensure that, in line with the National Marine Planning Framework, we are simultaneously enabling robust protection of our marine ecosystem and biodiversity.

There is some confusion in industry about what MARA being open in Q1 2023 means practically. Will MARA be accepting applications in Q1 of next year?

We are committed to having MARA established by Q1 2023, however, it is likely that there will be a period of time between a formal establishment of the agency and MARA becoming operational and accepting applications. MARA will not be in a position to accept applications in Q1 of 2023.

I’ll explain how this is critical to the proper governance and functioning of the agency.

MARA will have a board, which will be its governing body. In the period from when that board becomes legally constituted (on establishment day) to when MARA begins operating, the board will have to be satisfied that the processes in place are appropriate, robust, efficient and designed to the highest standards.

Also, the board must design the levy frameworks for MACs. Obviously, a huge amount of preparatory work is underway already, but there will be a period of orientation of this work when the agency is formally established.

How confident are you that the resources are there to recruit enough experienced technical staff to ensure applications can be assessed in house?

Resources are always a challenge, however, we have a budget of €2 million this year to allow early investment in the structuring of the new agency, which includes resourcing. Negotiations are ongoing as part of next year’s budget to ensure MARA will have sufficient resources. The importance of MARA is recognised across Government.

Our first step is ensuring we know exactly what technical expertise we will need and then prepare a plan to acquire those. We will co-operate with other public sector bodies to ensure MARA has access to those specific skills.
I’m confident that MARA will be able to attract the necessary expertise. It’s an exciting time to have the opportunity to design and work in a system that will be world leading.

We are currently working with colleagues on a detailed implementation timeline and will communicate this in due course. We will aim to bring as much certainty as possible at the earliest opportunity.

We are also very keen to reach out to stakeholders and the public to keep them in the loop as we journey towards MARA’s establishment.