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

I welcome what Mr. Maguire has said. The only currency in terms of getting the aquaculture industry to increase the outcomes from the industry is licensing. It is the only game in town as far as I am concerned. There is the willingness, the people are in place and the expertise is becoming available. The international comparisons are frustrating, and Mr. Maguire explained the historical issues that have built up in that regard, but we still have a problem. The baseline data are being compiled. Roaring Water Bay, Castlemaine, Dundalk and other such areas are getting their baseline data in place but an issue remains. For example, someone making an application for a licence in a bay that has already been dealt with such as Roaring Water Bay, and I do not know if licences apply there, will have to get somebody to interpret the environmental impact statement with respect to that baseline data, and that is not happening. It is taking too long to get over that hump. Mr. Maguire might give me some idea of the issue that arises in that regard.

Another issue is that in some areas there are not any Natura sites. The process on a site in western Scotland, from concept to harvest, takes two years. In a non-Natura site here I am aware of applications that have been in since 2007. That is very frustrating for those willing to make the investment, those looking for employment here and those who have concerns about the environment. It is even frustrating for the opposition groups that are looking at this process for six years. The perception is that one might engage with a process in the second year, even if one is objecting to it, and five years down the road it still has not been decided. Many operators here just want to know if it is a "Yes" or a "No" in terms of the application. I do not know how many licences it leads on to. Mr. Maguire might indicate how long it takes to evaluate an environment impact statement, EIS, as part of a new licence. How many licences are in the system that require that evaluation to take place? That will give us some idea of how far we have moved on. If we park the history and look forward, what is ahead of us?