Dr. Ciaran Kelly:

The Marine Institute participates in ICES and we are party to the ICES advice. Of course, we would recommend the ICES advice because that is the best available science at present.

That said, as we referred to earlier on, that advice is not particularly useful in terms of management. It is a precautionary approach but it is not particularly useful. The basis for saying this is that that average catch advice is useful for stocks for which there are multiple year classes in a fishery and stock. In the case of sprat, though, it is not useful and the abundance goes up and down very rapidly. However, in the absence of any other information, it is that precautionary advice.

There is a process ongoing within ICES and Ireland is both intimately involved and an actual leader in ICES, too. There are individuals seconded from the Marine Institute, for example, who hold positions within ICES in terms of the chair of the advisory council. We are working through those channels to try to get a better basis for the advice.

This is called data-limited advice within ICES and a process is ongoing in ICES to better provide such advice, particularly in the case of short-lived species like sprat. We hope in the interim - between now and 2027, for example - we could have better advice from ICES with regard to these types of stock.