Dr. Cecil Beamish:

Thank you, Chairman. I thank members of the committee for the invitation to meet with them today to discuss the status of the recommendations of the independent aquaculture licensing review group. This opening statement is intended to provide a broad overview of the aquaculture licensing system and how it operates; the key issues associated with the licensing backlog, which gave rise to the review; a brief overview of the key recommendations of the review; and implementing the review. I will be glad to take any questions from the committee members.

The aquaculture licensing system operates as follows. An aquaculture licence is required by law for the cultivation of finfish, shellfish and certain marine plants such as seaweed. Some aquaculture takes place on land but the vast majority of aquaculture activity takes place in the marine environment on the foreshore. In Ireland, almost all foreshore is in public ownership and aquaculture activity therefore requires both an aquaculture licence for the activity being licensed - that is, to conduct the operations - and a companion foreshore licence to lawfully occupy the area of foreshore in question. Even in the rare case of private foreshore, an aquaculture licence is required to engage in aquaculture activity.

The foreshore is measured from the high water mark out to 12 nautical miles and is approximately 39,000 sq. km in overall size. It is roughly equal in size to just over 50% of the land area of the State. However, the areas suitable for aquaculture represent a small fraction of the foreshore and, in the case of finfish cultivation, are exclusively on the western seaboard.

The legislation covering aquaculture is that the Department considers all applications for aquaculture licences in accordance with the following legislation: the Fisheries (Amendment) Act 1997; the Foreshore Act 1933, as amended; the EU Habitats Directive of 92/43/EEC; the EU Birds Directive 79/409/EEC; the Consolidated Environmental Impact Assessment Directives of 2011; and the Public Participation Directive, the Aarhus Convention. The licensing process involves consultation with a wide range of scientific and technical advisers as well as various statutory consultees. The legislation also provides for a period of public consultation. In addition to the above legislation, the Department must adhere to a wide range of regulatory requirements and other legislation which impact on the licensing process.

The Public Participation Directive has emerged as a crucial factor in the roll out of the licensing system as it applies to individual cases. The key aim of this directive is to grant the general public specific rights regarding access to information in governmental decision-making processes on matters concerning the local, national and trans-boundary environment.

It is important to note that while attention has been given to difficulties associated with licensing, the industry itself is in fact a buoyant industry with good employment potential. BIM survey data show that there was an overall increase in output from Irish aquaculture of 10% across all the species over the 2015 to 2016 period. We are also likely to see that continue over the 2016 to 2017 period although the final statistics are not available at the moment. On that basis, in 2016, the industry produced approximately 44,000 tonnes of high-value seafood. Not only did the volume of output increase, so did the value, which reached a level of €149 million at first point of sale at the end of 2015, and €168 million at the end of 2016. These figures reflect the growing global demand for seafood which in turn is underpinned by a strong demand for differentiated, quality assured seafood products within the EU 28. While some areas such as rope mussel production are relatively static since 2008, oyster production increased in volume from 2007 to 2016 by over 25%, with a value increase in the order of 128% over the ten-year period. The salmon farming sector also experienced an increase in production in the order of 60% from 2007 to 2016, reaching 16,300 tonnes. However the increase in value for salmon is quite striking with an increase of over 100%, reaching nearly €105 million in 2016.

The major complaint from the aquaculture industry and farmers on licensing relates to the backlog that has developed in the processing of licence applications. The background to the backlog is that in 2007, the European Court of Justice issued a negative judgement against Ireland for breaches of the EU birds and habitats directives. In total, some 71 marine sites had been designated in previous years as Natura 2000 sites and most aquaculture takes place in those sites, although significant aquaculture is really only present in about half of these. A large element of the judgement from the European Court of Justice, ECJ, concerned a failure by the State to put in place a system for data collection, definition of scientific interests and adequate assessment of aquaculture licence applications in the Natura 2000 areas.

At the time of the ECJ case, national legislation was put in place to ensure that Irish aquaculture operations operating under pre-existing licences, and which were seeking renewals could continue to operate under those licences until the Minister could make a determination on their renewal application in compliance with the Natura 2000 directives. In the negotiations with the European Commission to address this negative ECJ judgement, a process was agreed with DG Environment, known as the roadmap, and this is being implemented and has been rolled out since. The issues were how to give the Commission comfort so as not to move to daily fines or to requiring aquaculture to be removed from the bays and to find a way forward whereby aquaculture could be licensed in compliance with the birds and habitat directive.

That process of licensing includes data collection, the setting of conservation objectives by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the identifying the scientific interests to be protected in these Natura 2000 bays, the carrying out of appropriate assessments of the licence applications against those scientific interests, and appropriate licensing, taking account of, among other things, the Natura requirements. The production of these appropriate assessments has been resource intensive and very time-consuming, not least because of tidal cycles and seasonality issues relating to data gathering on bird migrations and other environmental phenomena. In many cases multi-year time series data had to be collected.

Data collection in the relevant bays can be very comprehensive. It involves collection of data on the benthos, the seabed, the bathymetry, the contours on the seabed, the substrates, the gravels and muds and so forth on the seabed, the fauna and the communities living in the bays, the migratory animals such as cetaceans in the bay, and the birdlife around the tidal area of the bay. For example, the data collection work involved 123 survey events carried out in 71 Natura sites by ten contractors.

In addition, the profiling of aquaculture industry activities was carried out for all of the bays to define the likely interactions with the conservation features of sites. In many instances there was very little data or published literature on the likely interactions between the aquaculture activities and the conservation features. A number of targeted studies and reviews were commissioned by the Department to investigate responses of conservation features, such as birds and-or habitats for specific aquaculture and fisheries activities. Many of these have subsequently been published in primary literature. All of this preliminary work was necessary to prepare the groundwork for consideration of licensing and such work took place from 2009 onwards.

I am glad to report that most of this data collection, definition of scientific interests and the appropriate assessment process is almost complete. The appropriate assessment reports have been received by the Department from the Marine Institute, which was contracted to carry out this work in respect of 27 bays. Those bays constitute the bulk of the aquaculture activity. The work that has been carried out since 2009 has permitted licensing to commence, in compliance with the Natura 2000 directives and the European Court of Justice, ECJ, judgment. Since licensing commenced under the new system, a little over 600 licensing decisions have been made on aquaculture sites located around the coast.

I will give a brief overview of the key recommendations of the review. Dealing with the Natura elements has been the major focus for all involved in the licensing process up to recently. There are other issues, including legislative reform, the streamlining of procedures and the optimum use of technology associated with licensing that also need to be addressed. Due to these elements, the Minister commissioned the independent review of aquaculture licensing in December 2016 and a report was delivered at the end of May 2017.

The review group carried out a detailed examination of the existing aquaculture licensing process, undertook comprehensive stakeholder consultation and considered comparative national and international consent systems to determine best practice for managing a complex licensing process in a transparent, environmentally appropriate and legally robust manner. The group's report has been published and is available to view on the Department's website. The report contains 30 separate recommendations which can be broken down as follows: 15 recommendations contain immediate actions in the short-term under the current legislative framework; five recommendations focus on the licensing authority and who should be responsible for aquaculture licensing; two recommendations are on tackling the licensing backlog and the future of licensing; two recommendations are on licence duration, terms and conditions and request that a dedicated procedure be put in place for scientific and trial licences; five recommendations relate to the wider issues of licensing; and one recommendations focuses on future legislative reform.

Since receiving the report the Department has engaged in a detailed consideration of all of the 30 recommendations with a view to preparing a comprehensive implementation plan. The draft implementation plan takes account of legislative, environmental, technical and public interest issues that have a bearing on the sustainable development of the industry.

As has been stated, it is possible to break down the recommendations into a number of key areas. The Department's implementation strategy has accorded priority to the recommendations on the basis of the following criteria. They represent key goals for industry representatives and are, therefore, likely to be the subject of strong expectations on their part. They represent a necessary initial stage that will lead to the implementation of the report as a whole. They require immediate commencement in view of their overall medium and long-term implications and the potential effect that implementation can have on the reduction of the licensing backlog.

As members will be aware, the core concern that gave rise to the review was the licensing backlog. Accordingly, the elimination of the backlog is the highest priority. The implementation of the report's findings, coupled with the substantial work done to date, will represent a new departure in the regulation of aquaculture which will facilitate the establishment of a well-functioning licensing system. Implementation will also help to achieve the necessary balance between the very legitimate needs of industry and public expectations in terms of environmental protection.

The Department is actively working towards the achievement of 300 licence determinations for 2018 with a further 300 projected for 2019. Achieving this will require the co-operation of a variety of other parties who have an input in the licensing process.

Achieving this level of licence determinations will meet a core recommendation of the aquaculture licensing review group. While there will always be licence applications in the pipeline, the achievement of 600 determinations during the next three years will effectively eliminate the backlog as an issue.

The Department's implementation plan is very much a working document and will be subject to ongoing change as we make progress in addressing the various recommendations made. The Department will consult and has consulted the industry and initiated consultation in the implementation of certain recommendations. I can confirm that we have already met industry representatives from both the shellfish and finfish sides of the industry to discuss implementation of the strategy and I have no doubt that the close engagement will continue.

In addition to the Minister's commitment in respect of licence decisions in the next few years, he has also put in place substantial financial and other supports for the industry. The financial support is supplied under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund operational programme and directed toward three main areas - sustainable aquaculture production, knowledge innovation and new technology, and more effective governance of marine planning. In addition to the direct financial support, BIM provides a range of technical supports for the aquaculture industry to assist in the development of existing business, address industry-wide issues such as disease management and the introduction of new technologies.

The aquaculture licensing industry has been developed sequentially since the judgment of the European Court of Justice and is being further reformed on foot of the review to deliver a system for timely, robust and compliant aquaculture licensing in Natura 2000 areas where most of the aquaculture occurs. It will be a significant asset in the development of the industry. The fundamental business case for the aquaculture sector remains sound as a strong market demand for its products continues to grow and as increasing global demand for high quality differentiated seafood intensifies.

I hope this statement has been of assistance. I will be glad to respond to questions committee members may have.