Mr. Pat Mullins:

I will give a brief rundown on our organisation. I am public relations officer for the Galway Bay Inshore Fishermen's Association. I am accompanied by Mr. Gerry Sweeney who is the secretary of the group. We set up as a group six years ago to protect the interests of fishermen working in Galway Bay and along the Clare coast. We have approximately 33 members, the majority of whom are full-time fishermen, with experience of more than 30 years. Our main fisheries are lobster, shrimp, velvet crab, brown crab and scallop. At the moment we are working with BIM, the Marine Institute and the SFPA on the long-term sustainability of the fishery. For example, last year our organisation agreed to regulate the shrimp fishery which was poor and we postponed that until 1 October. It usually starts on 1 September. We also have a successful v-notching programme. We are working with BIM and the Marine Institute to try to introduce a pot limit because most of our fishery is potting. The past winter storms were horrendous and I reiterate the comments of the previous speakers. I do not need to go through all the damage done, the wear and tear of gear and loss of earnings. The replacement costs are excessive at a time when our backs are to the wall in the fishing industry. We are having a tough time surviving. We had red tides and poor easterly winds during the previous two seasons. We are trying to research the red tide. The velvet crab fishery in Galway Bay has been wiped out during the past two seasons. That was one of our main fisheries with five or six boats engaged. Up to 50% of our income came from this fishery, which we had nurtured. We returned juvenile fish and so on but, out of the blue, this fishery was wiped out. We think it was due to the red tide and severe easterly winds. Research was conducted on this fishery in England because 60 tonnes of velvet crab washed up on the beaches in southern England.

We have not followed up on this. I have been a fisherman for 35 years and not much research has been done on inshore fishing. These fisheries are sustainable. In 2010, we conducted a report with the Marine Institute and BIM on the shrimp fishery, which was worth €1 million that season. That was more or less wiped out during the storms last winter because our gear was damaged. It is well worth investing a little in inshore fishing in the context of research and development. We need compensation but that is a short-term fix. We need to look at the future and where we are going in the long term. We are not coming here with a begging bowl. We all want to fish and to work. We have all reared our families and put our kids through college and we worked hard at it. We have not made a fortune out of it but we have had a reasonably decent living. That is where we want to stay.

The reason we are here is the compensation package the Minister has offered us. In a way he has recognised that we need to be compensated but the compensation is minuscule. It is a shame it was not delved out on the ground through BIM area officers who know what is going on on the ground and who know bona fide fishermen. All inshore fishermen want to know is that they have a future. We need to be taken seriously. Research and development needs to be conducted. The Marine Institute does good work but little work has been done on inshore fishing over the past 35 years. Between 70% and 80% of inshore boats are under 12 m. More than 2,000 fishermen work in Ireland and the vast majority of them are inshore fishermen.

The proposed salmon farm in Galway Bay is going down a different route. If a fraction of the money that is being put into that from Government coffers was put into inshore fishermen to manage stocks correctly, there would be a significant spin-off for the local economy, for example, in Galway Bay where 200 fishermen work. It is still not too late. We could have a bright future. All these inshore fisheries are sustainable. Our lobster fishery was decimated 15 or 20 years ago and it has come back from the grave due to v-notching, BIM and ourselves. If each fishery was dealt with on that basis and a little effort put into it, we would have a great future. Perhaps we can address these issues with the committee in the future.