Mr. Séamus Mac Eochaidh:

We do not use the words "sale" or "sell". We never wanted to sell it. It was not something we wanted to get rid of because it was too important to the area. We always wanted a strategic partner to develop it to its full potential. It was not a sale in this sense and we never set out with this purpose. As Mr. Ó Cúláin stated, we were given this company in 2006. The State invested initially in 1947 and the company had moved between various Departments and ended up in the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs in 2006. By 2006 the company was not liquid and in a bad financial state. It had lost €1.5 million between 2000 and 2006. It had gone from having reserves of €700,000 in 2000 to a deficit of €400,000 or €500,000 in 2006. The company had no money. It had spent a lot of money on a capital investment programme at the site.

It was in serious trouble and the banks were looking for their money back. We were given the shares, with 81% of the shares owned by the Government and 18% of the shares owned by a company called ISP Global Technologies, which had been the sole customer of the company. ISP Global Technologies had decided in the 2000s that it was no longer interested in Arramara Teoranta. Local people would collect seaweed and sell it to Arramara, which dried the seaweed before it was shipped to Scotland for the extraction of alginate. In the 2000s, synthetic alginate came on the market, so it was no longer viable to produce alginate from natural seaweed. What was probably unknown at the time was that ascophyllum nodosumis not the best source of alginate, and if one is seeking to extract alginate from seaweed, there may other variations, such as laminaria, that are far better. The people at Arramara did not know that as it had no science or technology expertise. It was being used by ISP Global Technologies as a source of dried seaweed, with valued added in Scotland. With the advent of synthetic alginates, it withdrew from the business.
We were left with a kind of basket case as a company, if I can use that phrase. We have much experience in Údaras na Gaeltachta of running companies from a board and strategic level but we did not know anything about seaweed. As ill-luck would have it, the existing general manager tendered his resignation when we took over the shares and he left in January 2007. At that time we had a company that was broke and we had to invest money immediately to keep it afloat. We began to consider how we needed a strategic partner to develop the company. We started the process in 2007 by putting in a manager to keep the company going. He did great work in three years, building up a customer base. One should remember that ISP Global Technologies was the customer, so the company had lost its customer. The manager did as much as he could from a technology perspective. We began the process in 2007 that culminated in the sale of the Údaras na Gaeltachta shares in May 2014. It was not a sale but rather we sought a strategic partner.