Dr. Susan Steele:

A number of very interesting questions were asked there.

The first issue I will come to - if the Chairman does not mind, I will not address the questions in straight order - is the points legislation because there were two separate questions on it. There is legislation on the Statute Book. This is in suspense at present as we are awaiting the appointment of an adjudicator by the Minister and awaiting nominees to the determination panel, by the Office of the Attorney General and by the Taoiseach and Minister for Defence. The points legislation is in suspense at present. That is in answer to those two.

To come back to the questions on super trawlers, Senator Mac Lochlainn raised the "Atlantic" documentary and the issues that were raised there and sought cast-iron assurances that not one fish more than the entitlement is taken. We are completely dedicated to having sustainable fisheries. When we inspect fishing vessels, we will target on at a risk basis. It can be difficult to inspect large super trawlers at sea due both to the size of them and, if the weather is rough, to the difficulty for the Naval Service in boarding. In addition, as was mentioned, it can be technically difficult because these are large vessels and we need to have trained fisheries officers. We have the numbers of inspections that we have carried out. They have been increasing. We have been looking at that. We have been working with other authorities to ensure that we are working on the risk-based work on that. We are setting up and putting resources in. As a number of members identified, there is a lot of pull on resources in the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority but we have made a strategic decision to set up a coastal state unit for the sole purpose of looking at the 80% of fish that is caught in Irish waters but not landed in Irish ports. We believe that it is paramount that we put significant resources into looking at that and ensuring that we work on a risk basis. We have superb relationships both with the Air Corps and the Naval Service for carrying out inspections but also with the flag states of vessels where the vessels are inspected on landing.

I will hand over to my colleague, Micheál O'Mahony, who runs the control side of the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, who will go into more detail on the number of questions that we have had on what we call "large-scale freezer vessels" rather than "super trawlers".