Legislation is currently (January 2023) being prepared to enable the designation of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Irish waters. Pending clarification of how an Irish MPA will be defined, there are currently three differing understandings, each of increasing stricture, of what constitutes a de facto MPA on the South
Further reading
The 336-page report of the MPA Advisory Group, titled ‘Expanding Ireland’s Marine Protected Area Network’, was published on 26 January 2021 and is available here or via this link: https://assets.gov.ie/120465/3c547ba1-e900-4559-92c9-760d2ead39f2.pdf.
The subsequent public consultation phase centred around the report of the expert MPA Advisory Group and the wider MPA process began in mid-February 2021 and extended over more than five months to the end of July 2021. More than 2,300 submissions were received by the Department. The feedback was the subject of an independent analysis and the consultants’ 69-page report was published on 31 March 2022. That report is available here or via this link: https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/4acec-independent-analysis-and-report-on-marine-protected-area-mpa-public-consultation-submissions/.
The 32-page submission made by Jim Hurley is available here and the 198-page submission made by Fair Seas is here in full, or here for pages 50-53 regarding the Southeast Coast only. A letter dated 6 January 2023 is available here as it is also relevant.