Ms Karin Dubsky:

I am pleased to be seated beside the IFA witness and agree with much of what has been said. Section 13 of the Fisheries Act needs to be commenced to enable us to clear the backlog of licences. The Environmental Pillar is happy to have this NSP. However, it has come too late. It should have been introduced for public discussion four years ago. It should have been delivered to Brussels 14 months ago, which was the deadline. To give it to us now with no public consultation means there is time pressure and little real change is likely to be made to it.

However, we will never give up. The Environmental Pillar has an alternative vision. Ireland has more, and a better, diversity of marine resources than any other EU member state, particularly those in the coastal zone. We have the luxury to say that we will have a different and top quality of aquaculture, building on our diverse shellfish, crustacean and fish species. We still have more native oysters per area than any other country. Germany is now giving €6.5 million in its EMFF allocation to get its native oyster stocks back up and running. The German authorities have prospected in Ireland to do this. However, there is not even a word about the value of our native oyster in the NSP. The NSP makes it out that native oysters come from aquaculture but they do not. They are a combination of wild harvest and aquaculture. The data are not adequate to separate the two. There are many unknowns in the NSP’s data. How many of the jobs figures are part-time and full-time?

Our vision calls for building aquaculture slowly, using the huge number of local people, like our colleagues here from Galway, who still have knowledge of the marine environment. I have just been to France where I examined areas where climate change has meant lands have become inundated. They are using this land to make shallow basins and lagoons for aquaculture, so that marginal farmers will be able to diversify into aquaculture. Such potential is not explored in this plan.

This plan concentrates on significant tonnages from salmon and gigas oysters.

We do not necessarily need gigas oysters. I know they grow faster, but they carry a lot of diseases which our native oysters get. If we put the emphasis into showing how valuable our lobsters are, instead of exporting 97% of them, our jobs would be in creating that wealth. In Boston, where my intern comes from, there are a huge number of jobs in the lobster industry. I would like to see that kind of vision but is it now too late? Are we stuck with this or can the committee make recommendations for a review of this report so that it can be amended? Or can we cast it aside and have a genuine discussion as was had in Northern Ireland? We were invited there to participate and see what the different scenarios and options were.

Aarhus convention compliance on land is pretty okay now. I think we are at the European average. When it comes to the marine environment, however, it is woeful. We share that frustration with the industry because we cannot get information or public participation. That is because access to justice in An Bord Pleanála is questionable. For example, the cumulative effects of many farms are not taken into account. Unless one is very rich one cannot go to the High Court. We have a history of adversarial argument, but we need to work together with all the different parties, including research and tourism. They must all mutually support each other so that we get a top, world class aquaculture.

I will now pass over to my colleague Mr. Rory Keatinge.