Seaweed is a wonderful natural product that provides vitamins and minerals like iodine. It is used in seaweed baths and cosmetics and as an agri-fertiliser. It is a valuable commodity for coastal communities and has rightly been very much protected and cherished as part of the heritage of coastal communities. Tá imní ar bhainteoirí feamainne agus úinéirí talún i gConamara maidir lena gcuid cearta feamainne mar gheall ar iarratais do chúig shuíomh dhifriúla ón gcomhlacht Arramara. Is táirge nádúrtha í an fheamainn le go leor úsáid, bia, leasachán nó cosmaidí ina measc. Tá cearta feamainne ag cuid de na húinéirí talún marcáilte ar a gcuid folios. Tá cearta eile thar na glúnta. Tá sé seo deimhnithe trí chomhairle ó Oifig an Ard-Aighne.

Seaweed rights are rightly protected and cherished. Some of them are marked on the folios of landowners, while others are not and are passed down through the generations. Different families know where their seaweed harvesting rights are. When Deputy Kieran O'Donnell was Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, he stated that advice provided by the Office of the Attorney General in 2018 to his Department was that these rights were to respected and that where they apply, a licence under the Foreshore Act 1933 is not required by the holder of that right in order to harvest seaweed, and nor can any other entity be licensed under the Foreshore Act to harvest seaweed in an area where existing formal or informal rights to harvest seaweed already exist. I am trying to organise a debate with the Minister and Ministers of State from the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment to discuss seaweed. It is a wonderful product that has great uses but there is concern on the part of traditional seaweed harvesters about a private company being able to look for and get licences to harvest this resource.