Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's commitment to taking an interest in this issue. My final point on this is that it was the subject of a High Court ruling. We know that the Commission's rule is clear, in that it can be either the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, that oversees the weighing of fish - currently, it performs spot checks on 5% of the total catch - or it can be done by a third party. The industry, which developed this machine at great cost to weigh this type of fish without destroying the fish - the fish are taken out of the water quickly, weighed and then put back into water - is willing to give the machine to the SFPA and the SFPA would run it. Given that the High Court has stated that the machine can be used as long as it is independently calibrated, there is a solution.

I welcome the Minister's statement that he will take an interest in this matter, given the importance of the sector, particularly to the region in question. On the week that the town becomes a university town, with Letterkenny IT becoming a part of the Atlantic Technological University, this story is taking away from that positivity and potentially from the engine that drives the area and its hinterland.