Mr. Jerry Gallagher:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to present to the sub-committee. Mr. John O'Brien and I used to leave the same pier in Mulroy Bay for many years to go fishing. I even went with his boat to fish for salmon, lobster and crab. In 1992, I formed North West Shell Fish Limited. Mulroy Bay in north-west Donegal would be renowned around the world for scallop production. In the late 1970s and early 1980s people were going into mussel production and put out ropes to collect mussel seed in the bay. However, they found they were covered in scallop seed. In Ireland this was not such a big deal but in France, where they had depleted their scallop fisheries, they were looking at wild collection, hatchery production and so on. A delegation from France came to work with Irish scientists, including Dr. Dan Machin. They stated if they had Mulroy Bay in France, they would have built a high wall around it and nothing else would be allowed in.

In the early 1990s, while we continued fishing, we formed North West Shell Fish Limited. The scallop settlement would be sporadic in Mulroy Bay. In 1997 and 2007 we had a good settlement. We got our first licence in 1995 which was expanded in 1997 but these expired after ten years in 2005 and 2007. We are awaiting a renewal of our licence. This is impacting on the whole scallop industry as there is very little scallop production elsewhere but in Mulroy Bay. The European king scallop, the pectin maximus, is one of the most difficult shellfish species to cultivate. Oysters, clams, mussels and so forth can be settled in a hatchery but for scallops the water quality has to be the purest. Even the smallest amount of bacteria will prevent the scallop larvae from settling.

North West Shell Fish was the model for the scallop industry. Anyone interested in getting involved in it who contacted BIM, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, was sent to us. While the French have not been so involved recently with our industry, the Norwegians have since the late 1990s. Some delegations have come over to us in Mulroy Bay to see our operations. We put out spat collectors in Mulroy Bay in what we call an onion bag. It is a monofilament net that comes in rolls of 1,000 m by 1 m from which we would cut off a strip of 1 m. We would have over 100,000 of these collectors. We monitor the water quality and take samples to see when the larvae are about to settle. There is a lot of science involved. The Norwegians were not going down that road because they wanted the hatchery model but they wanted to see how the rest of the scallop industry worked. They went diving with us during the harvesting.

In 2007, we teamed up with Valentia Island Scallop Fishermens Association which has a large area within the radius of Valentia Island. We were invited to invest in its programme but many did not because it was in the boom years and when one was not building houses and selling them one was doing nothing anyway. A good number, however, did invest and put the funds into predator control and other measures necessary in Valentia Harbour.

Spat collection in Mulroy Bay is sporadic. There is no brood stock in the north water part of the bay. We have asked BIM to come do a survey on this which it did last year and the previous year. In both surveys, BIM only found one scallop. It is a bit like having a hatchery with no brood stock. We have invested an absolute fortune in this through selling sites on our farms and so forth. Due to the licensing situation, we cannot seed scallops in that area. There is a fisheries order in that area from 1980 to protect this part of the bay. The main element to the collection of scallop larvae is the retention of water within a bay. The scallop spawns and its larvae will swim around for roughly three weeks before they settle on some structure. We work closely with our near neighbours who are fishing the Irish Sea along with the Irish fleet. I will not mention the country. They see the benefit of what we are doing. This is the uniqueness of Mulroy Bay. It goes back to issue of sustainability if we were doing what we should be doing and the licensing regime was in place.

We intend to build a hatchery. The Norwegian people I mentioned came over and they have successfully developed a hatchery process. They are keen to work with us on a hatchery and we have also secured investors. We are in a position to build a hatchery on the banks of Mulroy Bay but because it is a special area of conservation and appropriate assessments have not been carried out we are in a situation that is similar to the entire industry in Ireland. Valentia is not unique. Numerous co-operatives around the coast see scallop, mussel and oyster production as the only way out.

As has been noted by the other speakers, it takes all the elements. Coming from a fishing background I see how the elements can come together. In all of these species, whether mussels, scallops or oysters, a certain biomass is required to develop a bridge stock. Aquaculture is the way to go because it is a managed stock. If it was not for us I suggest there would be no scallops left in Mulroy Bay. We have been managing the stock in part of the bay but we face a bottleneck in terms of collection. We depend on a transfer of larvae.

There is not a problem in sustainability of shellfish from the perspective of aquaculture. There is an overlap between aquaculture and inshore fishing and Valentia provides a perfect example. There are niche markets for these products. We are now supplying live and shelled scallops to the Asian market. We get €6 per kilogram for the scallops we dive harvest. The product from the Irish Sea fishery is probably worth less than half that figure. We are not dealing with the same markets. Norway also operates a dive fishery. The aquaculture shellfish sector can flourish if the Government creates an environment that allows people to do things. That is all I am asking.