Mr. John Lynch:

I thank Deputy Whitmore for the question. Her question kind of implies the answer. It is a necessary answer, and we need to make ourselves clear on this, that the negotiation with Iceland is ongoing, to the best of our knowledge. How we engage with that is very important because, as I said earlier, we need to extract the maximum benefit to Ireland from that negotiation and there is opportunity there. To that end, we have ourselves in the Seafood Ireland Alliance, and the reason the five organisations got together was to establish better communications with our MEPs and with the European Commission post Brexit because the Deputy is right that the landscape has changed. Our intention there is that we develop within Europe and we work with our Ministers and our Department and among ourselves in the alliance as an Ireland Inc. representation in Brussels to get the maximum possible benefit we can from any negotiation that is going on in Brussels, including the upcoming possible reform or at least review of the Common Fisheries Policy. The Deputy is quite right that it is not easy to change anything within the Common Fisheries Policy, but there are tweaks in there that could make life a lot better for Irish fishermen.