Mr. James O'Toole:

I am here to represent the islands off Mayo. I am from Clare Island which has a population of 160. It is a very young population. Last year, 19 children were in the national school, 17 went to secondary school and ten went to third level education. We are sitting on a natural resource, which is fishing. It is the only natural resource we have and we are gaining nothing from it. This is why I am here to represent islands, to see what can be done. That population does not want to emigrate, although most of them will have to emigrate. There is a population that wants to stay, not like us. In my day, we could not leave the slavery fast enough but things have changed. The younger population does not want to move and there is a natural resource that can be tapped into without going into anything else. This is where our emphasis as islanders lies, that this natural resource is made amenable to us.