Dr. Ciaran Byrne:

In a sense, on certain stocks but other stocks of fish are doing very well. For example, if one wants to engage in coarse fishing, Ireland is a place to come. While some stocks are certainly depleted, others have increased significantly and in a point to which Deputy Moynihan alluded previously, there has been a change in the behaviour of anglers. As the Deputy mentioned himself, back in the day there was a time when anglers killed and kept every single fish they caught. In their mindset, they have now more or less moved completely to a catch-and-release type philosophy. In respect of specific metrics and numbers, I have them all. We operate them through the service level agreement, SLA, with our Department and report them in our annual report. The one about which I have concerns is increasing the number of anglers. It is a very difficult number to get. In 2012, we conducted our survey of recreational anglers. Prior to that, we only had bits of surveys from the regional fisheries boards regarding different types of fisheries and this was the first national survey. It is an omnibus-type survey and of course, the real metric will be to repeat that in three years' time and compare the number we had in 2012 with the number we have in 2015. That is how we will proceed.