Mr. Michael Desmond:

We will not have time to go through them all. I was not able to read the entire opening address. Seal numbers around our coastline are at record levels. There are now tens of thousands of them. Everyone knows their only diet is fish. Tens of thousands of seals will eat millions of fish. If an animal in the wild does not have a predator, its prey becomes extinct. That is what will happen. Unless numbers are reduced rapidly, no amount of MPAs will halt the reduction in fish stocks because seals do not have a predator. Norway, Greenland and Iceland have fish in abundance in their inshore waters because of seal culls. Finland, Estonia and Sweden have written to the EU Commissioner to request to be allowed to do what we are requesting, namely reduce their numbers. When we were allowed to fish for salmon, we kept the seal numbers under control. That is why there is salmon there. When we were prevented from fishing salmon, the population did not increase because if there are 100 seals at the mouth of a river, salmon cannot go up and down to spawn.

Mr. Menarry might address brown crab and Mr. Foley will speak about inshore vessels and the closest port.

On grant applications, we get all of our grants through BIM. When it was formed, it provided loans for fishing boats to fishermen. We would not have a fishing industry if BIM had not been structured in the manner in which it was in the beginning. BIM's portfolio has expanded to include the tourism industry. People cannot access a grant unless they pay 100% upfront. If I wanted to build a shed, improve my boats or do anything else, I have to pay 100% and then receive a percentage back from BIM. If people do not have the money in the first place, they cannot go ahead. The people who have will get more and the people who have not cannot access the funding. However, if the system worked the other way around, whereby BIM paid a supplier X amount and we then paid the rest, it would be a fairly simple solution.

Members know the story with social welfare. People who are self-employed cannot really access the system. We need financial subsidies and supports, and are looking for them. There is no fisherman in Ireland who is not down €10,000 a year due to Covid, Brexit and the war in Ukraine. That is just crew members. The market for shellfish has collapsed four times in the past five years. We cannot keep going with mounting expenses.

Mr. Foley can answer the question on the safest port because that relates to pelagic stocks.