Ms Caroline Bocquel:

On imports, it is worth stating that over 70% of all fish consumed in Europe is imported by Europe, so imports are very much a part of the seafood economy in Europe. Obviously we want to land and process as much Irish fish as possible. Every Irish fish landed is in huge demand and is prized by our processors and bought very quickly. While we do not have any control over the volume caught, because quota is a policy matter and is set by the European Commission, our role is very much to ensure the fish landed are of the highest possible quality and can achieve the highest price, and that the processors who are supplementing the catch with imports, which they must do, are doing so as efficiently as possible. For example, the number one fish we eat in Ireland is salmon; we love salmon. Ireland is the only salmon-growing country in the EU and all of its salmon is organic, but only a portion of the salmon we eat is organic. Therefore, the conventional salmon we all eat and enjoy has to be imported because we do not grow it. Similarly, we do not grow our second most favourite species, prawns. We have Dublin Bay prawns but do not grow warm-water prawns. There is a lot of import and export trade in seafood right across the world, and the vast majority of our organic salmon is exported.

We do not necessarily see imports as bad; what we want to do is ensure we are getting the highest possible price for the Irish seafood landed and that, through our fisheries conservation programme, we are maximising the opportunity to catch the species we have the quota for without catching the species we are not allowed to catch and in respect of which we are limited by by-catch measures. It is a question of ensuring that we optimise every kilo of quota we have.

On Irish shellfish, I could not agree with the Deputy more. We would love to see many more Irish people eating shellfish. We are reviewing a programme of ours called Taste the Atlantic. In this regard, we have worked with 22 processors and aquaculture producers around the coast. The programme was originally conceived of as a sort of a social licence project such that local communities would understand the benefits aquaculture brought to their economies, but what we have found over time is that, for many of the companies, the Taste the Atlantic aspect has become larger than their shellfish production because there is such great demand for the fantastic product the farmers are producing. We are seeking to grow that. What we are seeking to do now, particularly with the inshore sector, is bring all concerned together.

We have lots of ideas as to how we can bring them together with a lot of the synergies that can come from being together and on how we can promote them locally in local communities to local restaurants. Bord Bia is working closely with us on that promotion.