Mr. Fintan Gorman:

The Deputy's observations are music to our ears because this is the point we are making. We accept that in the economic circumstances in which we found ourselves for the past while, we could not expect to be prioritised over services like health, education and welfare but we now recognise that the rising tide is coming in and may lift all boats. We believe that for the type of investment we talked about - €25 million over five years - we can produce a much improved protection service and far higher participation in angling for the domestic market and the tourism sector. In respect of increasing angling levels, the evidence is there from the TAM project from 1994 to 1999 that if one invests in the product, more people will come and spend their money in peripheral areas and it will benefit the economy.

The Deputy asked me about the co-ordination of the service we can provide. Basically, the service is laid out by the 2010 legislation but the Deputy is right. It could be rationalised. We seek to protect the river and its fish species but if there is a problem with badgers or foxes up along the river, the National Parks and Wildlife Service will come up behind us doing another patrol. However, it cannot interfere with some lad reefing the fish population. Likewise, our officers cannot intervene if they see wildlife getting involved, so there is room for rationalisation and co-ordination. What we must do for our investment and what we can do for the little investment we are looking for is to follow the model of other countries.

Angling is a lifelong recreational activity. It is healthy, outdoors and available to almost everyone in this country because there is no place that does not have a waterway. I have dealt with young children all my life and I bring them out. I live within a stone's throw of Lough Mask and can invite anyone out to fish on the lough. We might see no fish for three days so any youngster will tell you that it is dull, boring and not cool and they will not come again. If I was willing to do what is being done on the reservoirs in England or what has been done in British Columbia, if we were willing to invest in a mountain and stock it with little lakes with rainbow trout and if I could bring those same two children and guarantee them that I would pay my tenner and they would get two fish, they would be into fishing. After a while with that experience, they would say, "Bring me out on Lough Mask. I might only catch one fish in two days but it's different - wild, native brown trout. Bring me down to the River Feale. Catch me a wild salmon". That is how we must do it. We must move with the times. We need starter lakes.

As the Deputy said, we need to be much smarter in the way we do our business. We need to introduce information and communications technology in all our business. I will give one example. Salmon licences are a semi-lucrative form of income for Inland Fisheries Ireland. Under legislation, we are not allowed to put the salmon licensing system online. Our officers must go around to hundreds of shops every year and leave in a book of salmon licences. They must then come back and try to collect the book, the licences and the money. Of course, when they come back the shop owner is not there so they might have to come back two or three times. Imagine the waste of resources involved in that process when the fisheries officer could be involved in protection.