Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)

I will reiterate my call that, where there are incidents such as storm damage, biological challenges or multi-year mortality events, targeted supports should be made available to aquaculture operators. As other speakers have mentioned, the economic and social benefits of these industries and this sector to our coastal communities cannot be overstated.

I will allow myself a level of discretion because I do it for everybody else. I have a couple of brief questions for BIM that relate to the topic of innovation in the aquaculture sector. I am concerned about a lack of opportunity and investment in innovation, especially compared to other countries. I am keen to hear about this from BIM's point of view. I appreciate BIM is not the Department and that this does not all land at BIM's feet. From BIM's particular perspective, though, what is happening in terms of engagement with third level institutions on training courses, skills and research and development? What is happening in the development in the aquaculture sector in terms of various species? In the last number of years, Spain and Portugal have innovated and diversified into sole, bass, bream and turbot. In Iceland, there has been considerable work on sole.

We heard a lot about Páirc na Mara in Connemara a number of years. I understand it is being developed primarily by Údarás na Gaeltachta but with BIM's involvement. Has there been any progress on that? What is the current state of play?