Mr. Donal Buckley:

I will respond to the question on activity in Killybegs. There are three levels of activity. We spoke about blue whiting. There are approximately 1 million tonnes of blue whiting off the Irish coast in different forms. Our intention is to attract in additional foreign landings into processors in Killybegs to produce fillets. Killybegs processors have made significant investments in that regard supported by State grant aid. That allows us to produce fillets and commodities for Africa. Second, the option we are also considering is protein surimi products, which are high value added. It involves producing various imitation products one sees on the market, such as crab sticks.

Bio-marine ingredients are a real game changer. Seafood proteins, in particular in Asia, are really important. We are leading the charge with these new products. We have looked at the markets and have got a very exciting response from them in terms of proteins. These will go into health and nutritional products, high-end pet care items and ingredients in other food products. It also enables one to produce high-quality oils which come out of this new boarfish resource which is a difficult fish for human consumption but which works very nicely when one breaks it down into these high-end ingredients and protein oils. That is in fruition and in planning and is likely to yield significant new employment and a new facility in Killybegs in the next year to 18 months.

The third aspect is commodities in Killybegs. We are really trying to open up more value-added activities. Next month we will have a workshop in Killybegs in which we will look at futuristic ideas and try to work with processors on what more they might do with the product in terms of more value and more employment. We think Killybegs is quite open to these possibilities and would be very confident about the future not only in regard to the existing resource and existing employment but in growing the sector significantly. I hope that gives some confidence in the sector.