Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I was in the Dáil Chamber for part of the meeting. Tá fáilte roimh muintir na n-oileáin. I reiterate what I said earlier. They are sitting on an island with very limited resources. They have land and tourism and the sea. I accept what Deputy Ryan has said about controlled fishing. It has to be controlled. The boat might be small but it could still have a powerful ability to hoover up fish. There is a huge industry to be built out of this. With food, we are seeing more and more that people want to know where it comes from and that it is genuinely local. A lot of restaurants claim that all the food is local but sometimes I wonder. In this case, we can really connect it, certify it and get the extra cost.

I have been reading Dr. Brennan's statement. She hits the nail on the head about something that is often forgotten about human beings. There are things in people's heritage; some people love fishing, some love horse racing etc. In rural communities there are people who are attracted to farming, cattle or whatever was in the family even though they have other, better ways of earning a living in the objective sense of money. Not everything in life is money. One thing that is inbuilt in many islanders - not all - is a love of fishing and the sea and a very deep knowledge that cannot be acquired from a book. As Dr. Brennan said, they have dúchas. It is important to recognise that yearning in people to access what was accessed by those before them in a sustainable way. We have to factor that into our thinking. Not everything in life is pure economics.

When I went to the west of Ireland back in 1974, I was meant to be a farmers' co-op manager. I quickly came to the realisation that the kind of land we had in the west of Ireland would not sustain vibrant, young communities purely on the land. We developed a different model whereby every household had various sources of income. That also meant they were less vulnerable to changes, short-term unemployment and so on, because there was something to fall back on. Someone might have a day job, a farm and some tourist income. Combined together, the three made a very sustainable family income, if I may use that old-fashioned term, although none would have given the equivalent of a modern income on its own.

We often overlook the importance of small-scale fishing, even though 80% of our fishermen are in that category and of small-scale farming. Both provide supplemental income which makes the difference between being on the bread line and having a reasonable standard of living. Obviously, building a house on one's own land is cheaper than having to buy a house on the open market. In that context, viable communities can be created but that will not be possible if we try to limit each household to one source of income. These areas are particularly open to the possibility of three or four sources of income per household, thus creating a sustainable family unit. If we do not give them access to the sea, however, that is not possible.