Mr. Andrew Kinneen:

I have a couple of brief comments on the questions the Deputy asked. What he described, the walk through he was given in Union Hall, sounds to me as if they have a best-practice system in place there. As an organisation, the SFPA is doing everything to minimise the impact of where we stand at present to deal with the revocation of the control plan. Part of that strategy is to have a mapping in place for the major fishery harbours and for the local authority harbours, such as Union Hall, where we may be able to define a footprint area where fish could come off boats and go to a local handling facility or buyer and there would be little or no disturbance to the practice. We are working on that, gathering information and getting it in place.

From the consultations we have had with different sectors of the industry, it is clear the revocation of the capacity to weigh pelagic fish in the factories has had a huge impact and there are huge challenges to work through given the audit findings. We are also hearing a strong message from the more artisanal and small-scale fishers who would be landing into places that do not have the benefit of much, if any, infrastructure. We are looking, and are solution orientated, to see what we can do with that.

We are working hard to try to get over where we stand. The Commission decision to revoke the control plan was not signalled to us. When it was happening, we were not consulted about it. However, we are certainly using many of the resources of the organisation to react and support the industry to get through where we are at present.