Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. The tie-up scheme was available to the inshore sector where people had a quota and where they had a quota for Brexit-affected species. In the case of crab and lobster, which are the bread and butter in terms of the species that are fished for the inshore sector, they are non-quota species. They were not impacted by Brexit in respect of the quota. I did run those two schemes, which I have outlined a couple of times, with regard to €2,700 for boats under 10 m and €4,500 for boats between 10 m to 18 m in length. Tie-up schemes were available for the whitefish fleet for whitefish quota. There also was a decommissioning scheme available for those boats in the whitefish fleet. That was recommended to me by the task force. As for how the decommissioning worked, although the level of quota stayed the same, adjusted for Brexit, by decommissioning a number of boats which came out of the system, it meant the remaining boats got to utilise the quota that was there. It kept their quota in a sustainable position.

That is how the whitefish fleet was addressed under the Brexit adjustment reserve. In the pelagic fleet, which includes species such as mackerel, horse mackerel and blue whiting and which has much larger boats, no decommissioning scheme was recommended for those boats. A liquidity scheme was, however, recommended for them and so liquidity funding was paid to those.