Mr. Paschal Hayes:

There is certainly a debate about quality, which I will ask Mr. O'Mahony to address in a minute. Our view is that one of the options available in Killybegs at present would very accurately weigh the fish without affecting the quality.

We have regular interactions with the industry. One such interaction related to one part of the industry that was willing to use the pierside device in the context of the first option, as I outlined in my opening statement, namely, pumping the fish into the pierside weighing device, putting the fish into a pre-weighed, pre-watered tanker, bringing it to the weighbridge, weighing it again and subtracting one figure from the other, which will show the weight of the fish. The man in question wanted to put two stipulations on that. First, he wanted to switch on the weighing facility on the pierside device, which I agreed to on the basis that the official weight would be the one obtained on the weighbridge. The other would certainly be a good reference but could not be used as the official weight. Second, he wanted to photograph the fish to see whether there was any damage to it. The agreement was that would be done. I do not know why it was never done, but it is a pity it was not because it would have given us much more information about how that scales would operate and whether the fish would be damaged. Furthermore, if there were damage as shown by the photographs, it would show what modifications could made to the scales to minimise or eliminate that damage. Perhaps Mr. O'Mahony will talk about preserving the quality of the fish.