Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Mulloy for his presentation and also Ms McManus and Ms Morrissey for being here.

Looking through the data Mr. Mulloy presented comparing Ireland's aquaculture production with other European countries, in 2017 Ireland produced 20,305 tonnes of aquaculture and that is down to 14,000 tonnes in 2020.

That is a very significant decline. If we look at other European countries, Norway, with a population not significantly higher than Ireland's, produces 1.5 million tonnes compared with 14,000 tonnes here. Iceland stands out as it produced a similar amount of tonnage in 2017 but by 2020, the figure doubled to 40,000 tonnes. While Ireland's tonnage decreased from 20,000 to 14,000, Iceland's tonnage increased from around the same figure to 40,000. It is a dramatic picture. If we take the 2017 figures, production declined in very few European countries, so it really stands out. The comparisons with Norway and Iceland in particular are alarming in terms of the potential aquaculture has for costal communities. I have seen it in my home county of Donegal with a company now called Mowi, previously known as Marine Harvest. Ms McManus is the leading light in the company in Ireland.

What is going wrong? In the previous Dáil, the agriculture committee engaged with the then Minister and his Department officials and asked for the implementation of the independent agriculture report. One of the major issues then was resourcing the agriculture appeals process. Just to be clear, the Oireachtas believes that every citizen has a right to object to a planning application. However, it should be done in a timely fashion. If aquaculture or seafood companies are being asked to go out to Asia, for example, to find new markets and create new jobs in Ireland, those new markets need to know there is a sustainable product and that its delivery and pipeline will be sustained over a period of time.

My apologies for giving a commentary rather than asking questions. I did not intend to do that but the statistics are very stark. The good news story, which is to be welcomed, is in the organic area. It would be good to talk about why that has been a success and what we need to do to maintain that success. There are positives in this story but unfortunately it is a negative story overall in terms of the capacity. Iceland and Norway produce 1.5 million tonnes and 40,000 tonnes, respectively, whereas the most recent figures for Ireland show we are down to 14,000 tonnes.

What can the Government do to turn this around to support the sustainable development of the industry? Why were the production targets that were set not achieved? How can we facilitate finfish aquaculture development? What should we do regarding the divergence between the targets and what is actually being delivered? My questions are linked.