Mr. Seán O'Donoghue:

I will address Deputy Martin Browne’s first question on what we can do in terms of this disproportionate cost. I will not repeat what I have already said. A key opportunity is coming up next Sunday and Monday to get burden sharing on the agenda. Maybe we will not achieve everything we want to achieve at this Council meeting, but I am confident there is a process we could start and get going. Obviously, other member states have to come on board but there are ways and means of doing that. It cannot wait for the CFP review because, with the best will in the world, that is kicking the can down the road and not addressing what has happened, and should not have happened, in that Ireland has taken a disproportionate hit with costs. We produced the figures that have now been verified by the Commission’s technical and scientific body. This is not just coming from us. There is now a document published on it.

On decommissioning, I have already said that, reluctantly, everybody came to the table on this. There are people out there who are, as Mr. Ward rightly put it, totally disillusioned.

People will need some avenue to be able to get out of the industry without ending up in bankruptcy. This is why we all came to the table, reluctantly, on the decommissioning. The levels have to be right. A question was asked about a tonnage bank. With regard to off-register tonnage, there needs to be provision for people who want to renew their boats, whether they be second hand or new. Off-register tonnage is one way of looking at this. Perhaps rather than decommissioning all of it, which is what the Department is planning to do, a certain portion should be kept. If we get our burden sharing, and as far as I am concerned it is not if but when we will get burden sharing, and there is a further review of the CFP we will need to be able to modernise our vessels. We will need to have a certain amount of tonnage banked to do this. This was discussed by the task force but no concrete proposals was put forward other than recognition by everybody that all of the off-register tonnage could not be decommissioned and then have nothing to allow for new vessels or modernisation of vessels.