Mr. John Lynch:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation and for the tribute he paid to our colleague Hugo Boyle. It was much appreciated. Deputy Kehoe's question to the Minister in regard to scallops is very relevant to our organisation. All seven of the Irish scallop boats are our members. I have asked a similar question of the Department and am awaiting an answer. The issue is that from 31 March, our scallop vessels will not be able to land in the UK, as they currently do when they are fishing in the Channel. It is too far to come back to Ireland and the cost of getting the product back from France to Wexford to be processed would be double the cost that it is now when doing so from the UK. I believe that to land in the UK after 31 March, scallops would need a health certificate for onward transportation. To my knowledge, the product would have to go through a processor in the UK to achieve this and testing would have to be done on the scallops before they could be exported from a third country back to the EU. What was being asked for was some form of derogation or system whereby the truck could be sealed in the UK and not opened until it reached the factory in Ireland.