Mr. Éamon Ó Corcora:

Regarding Deputy Ó Cuív's point, the Minister should be the promoter of both sides of the industry.

I agree there should be a separate entity for licensing.

Two years ago we proposed to the committee that all types of food should be labelled with its country of origin, or place of origin within the country, and whether it had been farmed. With regard to salmon farms and cages at sea, last year a presentation was made in Scotland by Professor Mark J. Costello of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Auckland in New Zealand on the problem with sea lice on wild and farmed salmon. I do not have a copy with me, but it can be found online and we can make it available to committee members. It is a damning report on cages at sea. He has listed all of the problems, including the amount of lice found on fish and the types and amounts of pesticide used, and it is frightening. I urge committee members to read it.

I have a copy of a letter sent to the Minister, Deputy Coveney, by the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture. It is with regard to persistent breaches of sea lice levels in Irish salmon farms. I have yet to find out whether the Minister has replied. I hope it has better luck with him than I did. We have not received an answer to any of our letters or e-mails. This issue will have to be examined. There are many reports and one can refer to any of them. There is an issue with regard to high levels of toxins, particularly in European salmon farms. The list is endless. Unfortunately, we do not have a budget to hire somebody to research this for us. We must do it ourselves. I have a young family and I am being pulled and dragged in 20 different directions every day. It is very difficult to conduct research. As far as I can see, cages at sea should be very small and in areas that are not near estuaries, because if large-scale salmon farms are in these areas, salmon or trout coming out of rivers and even trout in bays will all be killed. The committee speaks about the cost of onshore farms and closed tanks, but are we entitled to destroy our marine environment? This is my view. I do not have a degree in marine biology and I am not a qualified ecologist, but I would love to see our national broadcaster or the Oireachtas sending a team of divers with sophisticated camera equipment to see what is underneath the cages in our salmon farms and what sea life is dead.

With regard to lobsters and hatcheries, I have visited the National Lobster Hatchery in Cornwall and I know fishermen in Bridlington and North Berwick in Scotland. All these areas have very healthy lobster stocks. Using far less gear than we do, they can at least quadruple the catch. In recent years, sending fish to markets in Europe has been a problem for us. Some buyers go as far as China for fish. While our stocks are seriously depleted, Canadian lobsters are coming in with no country-of-origin labelling. Someone in an Irish restaurant does not know whether he or she is eating Canadian or Irish lobster, and this is a shame. The hatcheries are very important. From a tourism point of view, the hatchery in Cornwall has everything. It has T-shirts, St. Valentine's day events and educational visits for schools. The lobster stocks in the area are very well managed. It is a real money spinner. Why can this not be done here? Instead of being 30 years behind these people, we should be 30 years ahead.