Mr. Paschal Hayes:

I will deal first with the question on fisheries local action groups, FLAGs, because it requires clarification. As the issue with FLAGs is not a Common Fisheries Policy initiative, it is not automatically exempt from state aid. That is not to say that we will need to make a notification or that there will be any difficulty in funding FLAGS. However, we must examine other regulations in place to ascertain whether FLAGs can be funded without a state aid notification. In the event that we find a difficulty in this respect, we will submit an application for state aid to funding FLAGs. We do not envisage any difficulty arising in allowing FLAGs to be funded.

The Department was involved in committees at which this draft was initially discussed. We have asked the agencies that deal with grant aid to the fishing industry, for example, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM, and Enterprise Ireland, for their opinions on the draft and requested that they revert to us by early January. We will make a decision at that stage on whether the Department needs to make a submission as part of the consultation.

Senator Ó Domhnaill asked about stakeholder submissions. As the consultation is public, anyone can make a submission, including individual fishermen, producer organisations and anyone else. Everyone is entitled to make a submission on foot of the call for submissions made by the European Commission.

The Senator discussed the funding options in respect of the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF. While that is probably a different discussion, I will provide an update on the EMFF programme and the process involved in it. We had a number of consultations with a broad range of stakeholders, namely, the stakeholders we had in place for the current programme, the European Fisheries Fund, with some additions. We also had a number of bilateral meetings with other State agencies on their requirements. An operational programme is being drafted and will set out priorities for spending this money and the measures that will be implemented under the programme. It must go through a series of steps, including a public consultation, which will take place early next year, at which point everyone will have an opportunity to feed into the process and make known their views.

Deputy Ferris asked about the recommendation of the committee in respect of his report. I hope my response on the FLAGs addressed his concern.

I will provide some figures on the pot replacement scheme which may not have been available heretofore. The current position is that a total of €308,000 has been paid to 128 claimants by Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the organisation administering the scheme. BIM has recognised there is a difficulty with people accessing funding to buy pots and is giving them an opportunity to get to that stage. It is anticipated that the number of pots replaced may increase, with an estimated 13,000 lobster and crab pots and 2,700 shrimp pots being replaced by the time the scheme finishes.