Mr. Michael Desmond:

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt. In Ireland, inshore fishing accounts for about seven jobs ashore. For every inshore fisherman, there are seven shore jobs. That is according to State statistics. In Cornwall, it is 15 to one. They are saying there now for the pelagic sector this year, the price of mackerel will go up to €3,500 per tonne. That is €3.50 per kg. That is bulk codfish pumped in and pumped out. We are hook and line, and we cannot get €1 per kilo. Our fish is a hook and line caught fish and way fresher. We cannot get it. The reason we cannot, with regard to the processors, is that there is not enough of it there for them to set up the market for hook and line, but if there was bigger than 400 tonne quota they could.

That is another thing I would like to bring to the committee's attention. There was a survey report the then Minister, Deputy McConalogue, asked for two years ago on the hook and line mackerel fishery to see if 400 tonnes were enough or not. BIM gave it to Bord Bia. Bord Bia tasked a private company to do it. The girls in that company did it and sent back the report. We obviously know what the answer was - it was that 400 tonnes were not enough. Two years later, where is the report? Buried, cannot find it, nowhere to be seen. BIM will tell you that it was not actually a report but more of a review and it is finalising it now, even though BIM paid €26,900 to the people who put it together two years ago. We have yet to see that report.