Consultation response to the Marine Planning Policy Statement
July 2025
The Environmental Pillar is an organisation that works to represent the views of 38 of Ireland’s leading environmental NGOs. We work to promote environmental sustainability and the protection of our natural environment.
The Environmental Pillar welcomes the opportunity to respond to the public consultation on The Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment’s Marine Planning Policy Statement.
Proper, careful, integrated marine planning is a crucial part of ensuring our conservation targets are met, our maritime area is biodiversity rich and our seas support a thriving and fair blue economy. The draft MPPS itself recognises this principle (Part 1, page 2): “At its core, marine planning recognises and addresses actual and potential conflicts and seeks to organise human activities in marine areas to achieve economic and social objectives, while ensuring that the activities are environmentally sustainable”. However, the Pillar is concerned that the draft neither acknowledges the intrinsic value of nature and the environment nor acknowledges nature, biodiversity, and ecosystems as the fundamental basis for all economic activity. Instead, they are placed at the very bottom of the value hierarchy rather than being recognised as the essential foundation on which everything else depends. We would request that language within the MPPS is added or edited to reflect the commitment “to achieving and maintaining a clean and healthy marine environment where biodiversity is protected and restored” under the Environmental stewardship priority set out in the draft document. A healthy marine environment should be one of the primary driving principles and priorities of the MPPS and the policy framework it underpins.
