Prendergast urges public to engage in plan to tap trillion-euro marine market

Prendergast urges public to engage in plan to
tap trillion-euro marine market

Ireland South MEP Phil Prendergast is urging the public to engage in a new
consultation process on how to tap the trillion-euro marine market.

“The seas around Ireland are quite simply an untapped national wealth.
Official figures show other countries make far more revenue from their
waters. Sectors such as food, ocean energy, gas, oil, tourism and shipping
all have huge capacity to expand.

“The government is now asking the public for their views on how to turn
this potential into revenue and jobs.

“It has launched ouroceanwealth.ie, click here
where the public can express their
views and get official figures and background documents.

“Ireland has one of the biggest seabeds and coastlines in Europe so a
truly large-scale indigenous sector is there to be established.

“Agriculture, which exploits a much smaller area compared to our marine
resources accounts for 5% of our GDP but the marine sector accounts for
only 1.2%. This gives an idea of the staggering wealth neglected by Fianna
Fáil governments grown lazy on the fat of property taxes in the past 10
years.

“Those taxes are gone so the Irish people and the government must work
together to find new sources of wealth by looking to the sea.

“I urge the public to engage before the end of March in this consultation
which will form part of Minister Simon Coveney’s marine plan for
exploiting a trillion-euro market.”