Mr. Brendan Byrne:

First, the extension of the trade agreement, gives us 12 years of certainty. We must look at that in the context of what we witnessed in the UK for the past eight years with the turbulence of the various governments, from Theresa May and Liz Truss to Boris Johnston. That certainty is welcomed by the sector. We welcome it. The historic fact is still there, however, that the losses imposed on Ireland in 2020 are really hurting the sector right across the board. The sector I represent, that is, the processing sector, has lost €240 million of fishing opportunity. That is manifesting itself with reduced working hours and employment opportunities in the various factories across the board.

While there are others who say the BAR alleviated that, we need to be realistic when we do an analysis of that. While we did get €30.4 million in funding for capital investment, the sector had to invest €110 million of its own money through mortgages and loans to draw down that €30.4 million so there was a lot of risk on the part of the sector. The other scheme that was to benefit this sector was the Brexit transition fund. I challenge anyone here to have a look at that scheme. It was a disaster from beginning to end. It missed the opportunity to help the sector. Then we have to bear in mind that €230 million of the BAR fund was sent back to the EU at a time the sector is crying out for support.

We are in a situation where global demand for fish is high. We could sell multiples of the volume of fish we are processing but it is not available to us. The 12-year extension for the sector I represent will cost us €1 billion. That is what this 12-year extension will mean. That is shared over 82 fish processing units. Doing the ratio, that is a severe hit for our sector. That is the certainty that I, the factory owners and processing owners are dealing with. We need to evaluate the past five years and we need to do a prospectus on what the next 12 years really mean in real terms. I am now conscious that I am over time so I revert back to the Chair.