Mr. Jerry Early:

My name is Jerry Early and this is my fourth time appearing before the committee. We are on first name terms at this stage. On the three previous occasions, I was representing the Donegal island fisherman. At our last meeting on the advice of the Joint Sub-Committee on Fisheries, which is recommendation 20 of the report, we were advised to organise and set up an all-islands body, which I am glad to say we have done. I am chair and spokesperson of this group called the Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation, IIMRO. I am joined by Mr. John Walsh, from Bere Island, County Cork; Mr. Enda Conneely, from Inis Oírr, County Galway; and Mr. James O'Toole, from Clare Island, County Mayo. Unfortunately Mr. John O'Brien was left on the island and he could not get off it this morning. That is the beauty of island life, I suppose.

This group has done much work setting up a committee and we are in constant contact on matters pertaining to fisheries and the marine on our islands. We refer to the report of Joint Sub-Committee on Fisheries, which was launched on Inis Oírr in January 2014. We welcomed many of the report's recommendations, but now we feel these recommendations must be implemented. IIMRO has prioritised four of these recommendations to be implemented initially.

For example, recommendation No. 10 refers to the feasibility of the issuance of a heritage licence to island communities. This recommendation is of great importance and we feel that it needs to be acted on immediately.

IIMRO proposed to co-ordinate with existing groups such as the interdepartmental marine co-ordination group, MCG. While that may not be possible, it could be some other group. That group is chaired by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine and it meets monthly. We propose we should have input into the MCG as part of a working group that deals with the report's recommendations. We welcome the newly formed fisheries forum the Minister has set up to deal with the inshore fisheries. I am part of that nationally and regionally. However, this group's terms of reference do not address the full concerns of islanders and island life.

I will elaborate on recommendation No. 10 after I give my colleagues a chance to introduce themselves.

Much voluntary time and effort has gone into setting up this group and we feel that we have held up our end of the bargain. We now feel that this committee has a responsibility to implement the recommendations, as it promised to do in January 2014. We were assured this report would not gather dust, and it is to be hoped that with the help of members of the committee, this will not be the case.

The revised Common Fisheries Policy Basic Regulations 2014 state:

Member States should endeavour to give preferential access for small scale, artisanal or coastal fishermen.

Small offshore islands which are dependent on fishing should, where appropriate, be especially recognised and supported in order to enable them to survive and prosper in the future.

This was a huge recognition, but we need help from the Government and from this committee to get the benefits down to an island level. IIMRO is totally committed to working with the State to make this possible, but we need resources, guidance and help to move things forward.

Once again, I thank members of the committee for their time and I hope that after this meeting we will finally have a roadmap to sustainable island communities which we can all feed into and be a part of.