Mr. Luke Aston:

The answer to Deputy McNamara's question is probably the answer to many of the questions from the fishing lobby, namely, product. It does not matter what one does or how one dresses it up, if one does not have what one says one is going to sell one cannot sell it. The first way to improve angling tourism is to sort out the fisheries. There is no point saying it is two different things. There are many little things one can do. One can bring the tourism people and do everything else about it but unless there is the product and the perception of product, Ireland will never improve its share of the angling market, which is a huge market.

I have lots of ideas. If one takes the product, the salmon was banned because of illegal fishing of salmon, and the perception of illegal fishing which made it easy for the angling lobby to use that against the fishermen. This is the best country in the world for making fantastic rules and not enforcing them. If there are new rules about the size of boats going into the 12 mile limit, the way of fishing and so on but the attitude on the ground is “ah but sure, it’ll be grand” that has to be tackled. We need to get a product, put a system in place and enforce it.

Fisheries and angling are covered by a lot of legislation for passenger licences and fisheries enforcement, the type of fishing and passenger boat one is allowed to use, and every one has a different agency, the coast guard, the navy, the fisheries committee and the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority. Why not have a coast guard and fishery protection agency? We are all told we have to save money. It would be simple to do this. There could be one agency with good-sized boats. The navy has just bought two fine new vessels. I do not what it costs to crew and run them. In Alaska there is one protection vessel with the fishermen and those involved in angling all on side. That is an obvious example. If we have two or three boats that can stay at sea for a reasonable length of time with a few people who know what they are doing to enforce it and have smaller boats inshore. They will inspect the angling boats and the fisheries. In west Clare, in the Loop Head area the salmon fishing was limited to four days and the type of gear one was allowed and it worked. That was a perfect situation. Had it been recognised as working there would never have been a lobby strong enough to get rid of that salmon fishery.

My business is angling. There is a P5 licence to go outside 3 miles from the land. I get a boat built to that standard, and jump through a lot of hoops to get the licence and I know several other operators who do exactly the same but a fellow can get any old bit of paper, or no paper and go out and there is nobody to stop him doing it. There are no inspections at sea. The person who jumps through the hoops is crucified with costs. If the committee wants to help develop angling the first thing to do is develop the product. That cannot be developed individually but must be part of an overall scheme on the 12 mile limit.

The tourism people will talk about lots of other little things, marketing and access. Only now are we starting to see flights return to the west coast. Up to five or six years ago there were full flights from Holland to Shannon, with a lot of fishermen. They have stopped coming. We think that if people want to come from Germany or Holland it is easy for them to drive for three hours down a fine road from Dublin to the west of Ireland. When one talks to them about it, however, one discovers that they are all, for some reason, used to driving much shorter distances than we are willing to drive. We have to be able to get them from their location to where the product is quickly and easily. In Norway and Iceland there is no limit on weight for fishermen. Little things like that could be done.

Another area of huge potential in Ireland is catch-and-release tuna fishing in Donegal Bay. It is ridiculous that we are not allowed to market it or, in theory, to do it, even though we would be catching and releasing fish because apparently in Ireland there is no quota to land tuna. It would not be landed. There must be joined-up thinking on product development and what we can do.

At any of the main angling shows I have been to in Holland or Germany every council area in Norway had a stand. They all have lots of CDs with sexy-looking fishing on them. I had no interest in angling until I started to do it out of necessity. I very much enjoy it now. Wherever I go in the world I always try to get in a day or two of fishing. I can honestly say there is nowhere like Ireland for fishing. There are 30 or 40 species. I have caught everything from shark weighing over 1,000 lb to tiny culver fish. The Norwegians have cod, haddock, a few plaice and cold fish and can build an industry in which 250,000 people spend €1,000 each. We have a fantastic resource but we are not able to market it. The tourism people tell us people do not go anywhere for fishing. There are 250,000 people from Germany who go sea-fishing in Norway. There are lots of other types of fishing. There are 1 million active anglers in Holland, and the same in Italy and France. America has not been touched. The Chinese love shark fishing. I have taken them out. They are incredible. That has not been touched yet the marketing people will tell us nobody comes to Ireland to go fishing. A basic start would be the recognition that angling produce is a huge market that has to marketed. The product must be there and protected and the facilities, the boats and infrastructure on the piers and so on, must be in place. That is a holistic answer to the question.

All of that must be done and the answer to the question is holistic, as there is not just one element. There is much potential.