Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank the Chairman for his initiative to establish this sub-committee of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It was clear that the fisheries side was losing out compared to agriculture, which is the historical experience going back 40 or more years. I hope the sub-committee will go some way towards redressing the balance.

I also thank the representatives of the fishing organisations for sacrificing their time and making the effort to come from coastal areas and islands, which is not easy. I acknowledge the distance they have travelled and the time they have spent to come here and give their presentations. While it may appear that only a few members are present to listen to the presentations, what is said is on the record and a report will emerge from the deliberations. Every word that is said will be taken into account. From the presentations we have heard it appears there are diverse views and even though they all relate to coastal, community and fishery issues, different backgrounds are represented. That is one of the challenges with which we must deal in terms of formulating or reviewing policy. Reference was made to the BIM reviews of 1999 and 2005. We must revisit the reports and take the positive aspects from them.

The conclusions they came to have not changed much other than that the decline in these areas has not been arrested. The situation has deteriorated. Mr. Early gave a stark illustration of the position in Arranmore, but that is not atypical. Regrettably, that is what is happening throughout the coastal region.

What is frustrating for Deputy Ferris, Deputy Ó Cuív, Senator Ó Domhnaill and me, as well as other members of the committee, is that we are an island nation - there is not any part of the country that is more than 65 or 70 miles from the sea - yet the political discussion about general maritime issues has been woeful, and I hope this exercise will highlight that. From that perspective alone, it is positive engagement.

We are examining a number of different areas in aquaculture, particularly on the sea fisheries side, and the way they can benefit our most rural coastal and island communities. In recent years, even though our sea fishing industry has changed, it has consolidated, but to the detriment of communities that had traditional inland and island sea fishery sectors in which people were actively involved, although not on a full-time basis. No one is saying they would make a living out of salmon fishing or potting on a full-time basis, but it gave them enough of a livelihood to allow them to supplement their income by way of small farming, building or whatever to keep them ticking over, so to speak. It would ensure that their children and families would remain in that community, which would keep a school, a post office, a local shop or a hardware store open and trading. Those communities have been wiped out.

As the witnesses are aware, everything appears to have been pushed into the five or six harbour centres throughout the country. That is acceptable if it is the way people want to proceed, but we face a challenge in terms of what happens in places such as Fenit, which Deputy Ferris mentioned, Union Hall, Greencastle and Kilronan. The challenge is to see if we can come up with some way of at least arresting the decline and giving encouragement to people who may have a business plan, who want to invest in either upgrading or buying a vessel or who just want to remain in the industry. They do not have that assurance.

There is great potential in aquaculture. I was pleased to hear Mr. Richie Flynn's view on this. We are coming from a base of producing approximately 14,000 or 15,000 tonnes of salmon per annum. Scotland, which is similar to Ireland in some ways, produces ten times that amount - 140,000 tonnes - while Norway produces 1.2 million tonnes. We have the resource on our doorstep. When people in our coastal communities and in our islands look at the ocean they do not see an obstacle or something that inhibits progress. They see a highway, fertile ground, opportunities and a resource, and we must translate that vision into a policy that will sustain the people who need that entrepreneurship to develop. I hope the witnesses' comments and presentations will feed into a report that we can present, but we must be realistic. Nobody here has a bucket of fairy dust that will be a magic solution to all our problems. We must find a space in which we can arrest the decline and improve the position, either within existing legislation or by changing the political narrative for coastal and island communities, or by initiating a new review. A entirely new review may be an appalling prospect, but we could revisit previous reviews and documents to identify where their implementation failed. We could give some assurance to communities that we can help. The salmon proposal, for example, would be very welcome in some communities, but we can be certain it would be regarded as an appalling scenario for other lobby groups. However, we have to deal with that and consider the potential positive impact of some of the policies that we must suggest.

Offshore fisheries is a separate issue, but it is related to what we are dealing with here. Ms Caitlín Uí hAodha asked about the way in which our policies negatively affect these coastal communities. That must be dealt with also, because we have all heard the phrase "No man is an island," and any decision taken has consequences, albeit unintended, for the most vulnerable communities along our coast.

I do not propose to ask questions. I am familiar with the issues. I want to assure the witnesses that the presentations they have made are the most important of this process. I hope the diversity of the presentations and, more importantly, their common theme will be recognised in the report and that when we eventually come to decide on how to make progress on this issue, we will have a positive impact on many of our coastal island communities. If we achieve even two of our objectives, this meeting will have been a positive exercise. If we have only raised awareness of the issues facing island communities it has been a positive morning's work, but I trust that this will be regarded as being the critically important part of the work this committee will do in the next month or so.