Mr. Brendan Byrne:

First, Deputy Mac Lochlainn is 100% correct with regard to blue whiting. We are the global leaders in developing that species of fish for human consumption. Now, because of a particular regulation, if you are monitoring on the pier, we are virtually taken out of the market. Due to the soft nature of blue whiting and depending on the year or time of year, the ambient temperature and fat content, it is a very difficult fish to manage and handle and yet maintain it in the food chain. With what is being asked of us time and time again, we have seen that if we are asked to monitor on the pier for a particularly large landing or indeed any landing, we end up being unable to do that. The control and enforcement regulation is prohibiting us from doing blue whiting for human consumption.

The second part of the Deputy's question is the kernel of why we are here. If you go to any other port in Europe, there is nothing like the degree of monitoring, oversight and supervision you have in this country. It is so much so that the statistics for the last two years show that foreign vessels have stopped coming to this country. There was one year when foreign landings into Ireland fell by 58%. That is because they were just not going to put up with the degree of hassle and haranguing that there is in this country to land fish. At the same time, we are the only country in Europe that has a live feed into the competent authority. We have also CCTV images maintained for 31 days. That equates to 80,000 hours of CCTV every 31 days. On the factories Deputy Mac Lochlainn referred to, there are 78 or 79 cameras there. He is correct; not alone are there live feeds into the SFPA offices, there is the fallback of 31 days. Any hour or minute of those recordings, the 80,000 hours I referred to, can be sought by the SFPA and we are obligated to provide that.

As a country, we have the gold standard of regulation but there has to be a balance between having a gold standard and allowing an industry to function. You cannot have regulation that prohibits you from functioning. If we had that, no sector of this economy would be working. Unfortunately, this is what has happened in the fishing sector because until now we did not have the oversight of an Oireachtas committee, for example, where we can articulate this point. This is where we are at and it is why, as I have continuously said for the last three years, as processors we are struggling and there will be factory closures. We are 100% for robust regulation and enforcement but do not tie my hands, throw me into the deep end and tell me to swim - I just cannot do it. That is what has happened in this country. We are struggling.

Enforcement and control regulations are there for the betterment of us all but they should be made practical. They should not inhibit the processing blue whiting, or any other species for that matter.