Mr. Finian O'Sullivan:

One of the impacts of the delays in licensing is obviously on production. We cannot produce the volume but a big impact of the licensing delays is that any person whose licence is in renewal cannot benefit from the sustainable aquaculture grant scheme. On the one hand we are creating a fund to promote and grant aid projects in aquaculture but if a licence is in renewal, which is the case for many people for years, they are disqualified for grant aid from Europe. This is all because the licensing system is not working properly. It is a contradiction, in that money is available to help people develop business enterprise and on the other hand, because people do not have a licence through not fault of their own, they cannot avail of the funding. It is not of our doing. We have been waiting for years for licences.

However, confidence in the industry is undermined because you are trying to sell the idea of an industry to young people who basically take one look at it and ask why they would get into it given all its problems. My son saw that we survived down the years and he got into it but to attract new people into the industry is just impossible because there are too many problems. The two main issues that I see are that production is not there and there is no critical mass to supply and maintain continuity to markets, as Ms McManus would say, and, second, there is a sustainable aquaculture fund but one cannot benefit from it.