Pádraic Fogarty: U-turn shows Government is unwilling to protect Ireland's sea creatures

Micheál Martin's government has paid lip service to establishing new marine protected areas but the recent backflip on the bill and his government's failure to legislate to exclude large trawlers from coastal waters has increased the public's frustration

A whale off the Dingle Peninsula. Unlike nearly every other European country, Ireland lacks even the basic legislation for the creation of marine protected areas, something that we agreed to pass back in 2008 with the adoption of the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive. File picture: iStock

At last month’s United Nations Ocean Conference, held in Nice, France, the Spanish government announced that it would be creating seven new marine protected areas (MPAs) which will bring its total network to 25.7% of its territorial waters. 

Spain is hardly a great champion for marine protection, it is currently in court for allowing bottom trawling in its MPAs and has virtually nowhere that is ‘strictly protected’, that is, off limits to all kinds of fishing or extractive activities. Nevertheless, it can credibly say that it is on track to achieve protection of 30% of its waters by 2030, an international benchmark that many countries, including Ireland, have signed up to.