By Colum Delaney, Policy Advocacy Officer, Northern Ireland Headquarters
It is very nearly there! On Tuesday 30th April the Bill passed the Consideration Stage and on Monday 14th May passed the Further Consideration Stage of the legislative process. This is when any late suggested amendments to the Bill are debated and accepted or rejected by the NI Assembly.
In total there were 20 amendments lodged. Of these 14 had been presented by the Department of the Environment itself (all passed), 2 by the Alliance Party (1 on Sustainable Development passed, one withdrawn) and 4 (1 rejected, the others not moved on) by the Green Party.
In truth the Bill was never going to be as robust as we would need it to be. But it is a better bill now than it was and we should celebrate that. The biggest omission with the Bill has been the failure to create the NI MMO (Northern Ireland Marine Management Organisation). Despite universal agreement that the current structures have failed there was no appetite within the DUP and Sinn Féin for a meaningful shake up - and without that support meaningful change was unlikely.
Beyond that, we should support the bill and it is without a doubt the most important piece of marine legislation in our history.
We are delighted to see the Bill finally getting close to adoption and the signs are that it will become an Act in June of this year.
There is still a great deal of work ahead for us – the Act will have to be implemented and we are already heavily involved in that process.