Mr. Cecil Beamish:

On Deputy Harrington's point about the fisheries fund, the overall fisheries fund is not yet agreed; it is part of the multi-annual financial framework. In the discussions that will take place in November the quantum available to the fund globally will be part of that agreement. What the Council has agreed is on the way aspects of the fund can be spent subsequent to agreement on the actual quantum involved.

Regarding decommissioning, the agreement reached at 4 a.m. over a week ago was that the available fund to a member state would be a maximum of €6 million or 15% of the national allocation. The national allocation and the criteria governing that will fall to be decided during the Irish Presidency subsequent to the agreement on the global amount in the fund.

On the point about hake and industry science, science is an area where Ireland has developed a strong competence in regard to fisheries. The Department, working with the Marine Institute, has tried to build up our science competence and our place in Europe. In fact, the leader of the fishery science division in the Marine Institute is taking over as the president of ICES, the European fisheries science body which advises the Commission. That is an important development.

Nationally, we have also put in place arrangements whereby the scientists and the industry talk on a regular basis in the industry science partnership to ensure that the distance between the fishermen and the scientists is narrowed to the greatest extent possible and the communication maximised.

Mention was made of the time it takes to get the science the institute has to the Council. We have been part of the International Commission for the Exploration of the Seas, ICES, for almost 100 years and its purpose is to vet everybody's science to ensure that when the science is done it must go through a peer review. The Commission will only be interested in that science if it has gone through peer review through ICES. There is a process that must be gone through when scientific work is done to get it through ICES and then back to the Commission to influence its proposals. Unfortunately, it is a long process but it is structured within the year and we work hard to try to get our science through that peer review process and into the Commission.

In terms of discards on technical measures, the Deputy commented also that the technical measures were showing good results in terms of reducing discards. That is a positive outcome and is something we will have to drive on much more in the new reform because under the new reform the elimination and reduction of discards will be a critical element.

Eliminating or reducing discards is vital from the point of view of not wasting food. It is also vital from the point of view of rebuilding the stocks. Rebuilding the stocks is a central element to how Ireland will get higher quotas because when we have a fixed share but continuously declining stocks our fisheries are in decline. If we can rebuild those stocks through those kind of technical measures, avoiding discards etc., we have larger quotas and a more viable fishing industry.

On the point of safety, as the Secretary said, agreement in the Council is only one step in this process. The Parliament must come to a position on that. When we have a Parliament position on that early next year the Irish Presidency can try to marry the Council and Parliament positions to get to the final point but it is still possible to give some support for mandatory safety equipment. There are still possibilities to move forward in that area.

Senator Ó Domhnaill also commented on the discards issue and the points I made on that are equally applicable in that case.

Regarding regionalised measures, Ireland drove hard early on in the process of CFP reform to try to deal with the issue of how to get greater regionalisation into the Common Fisheries Policy.

We get matters agreed at a broad level in Brussels but many actors who are not involved in the fishery do not have detailed knowledge and that makes it more difficult. On the other hand, if one is getting measures agreed that affect our area but where two or three big member states are the big players, there is a danger for Ireland, tactically, of being in an arrangement whereby two large member states could be dominant. We were conscious of how that might affect Irish interests. We pushed hard for an arrangement, which is largely reflected in the general approach that the Council agreed in June, which is essentially one whereby when the concerned members agree working with the industry through the advisory council on a regional set of measures, those can be fast-tracked into European law and then will be equally applicable to all fishermen in the area. It was an important element from Ireland's point of view that all the fishermen should be playing under the same rules in a given area. The last thing one needs is fishermen being able to state that there are different sets of rules for different fishermen under different flags. Therefore, those measures can be fast-tracked if all the member states agree working with the industry. If the member states do not agree, it has to go back to the normal Community co-decision procedures for establishing European legal provisions governing it. That is what has been reflected in the Common Position. That is something that is welcomed by the industry and by the authorities in Ireland.

On Area VI, there have been particular technical measures in place for a couple of years and they have created many difficulties in Area VI. The stock position has not been good in Area VI for a long time. What is in place in Area VI are EU rules. Senator Ó Domhnaill stated that the Department had made rules. We simply implemented the EU rules. The Department and the Minister, working also with the rapporteur, Mr. Pat "The Cope" Gallagher, MEP, have worked to try to get amendments. We have pushed hard to get the changes, which are now coming through, in new technical measures for Area VI which will permit lesser spotted dogfish fishery with gill nets and also a skate fishery using gigging. These are fisheries which fishermen have asked us to try to open up and to get available to them. We do not see them as being harmful in relation to the stocks that had to be protected and we built up the science to make that case at a European level, and I think it is now being accepted. We see greater possibilities there.

Senator Comiskey also raised the issue of discards. Last year the Minister published an atlas of discards. It was the first one ever done in Europe. He put it out there, warts and all, and took the view that unless we know what we are dealing with, we do not know how to deal with it. We must have the information on the table. He then pushed hard at European level that this would be done equally in other countries so that we could see what were the real level of discards in different fisheries for different fleets, and only then can we properly deal with it.

On the issue Senator Comiskey raised on quota allocation for different types of vessels, the quota allocation is done in close conjunction with the fishing industry. There are national quotas set which the country has an obligation to abide by, but within that it is essentially a partnership arrangement with all the industry stake holders to try to come to the greatest level of agreement possible on how those quotas are allocated across the fleet and over time within the annual cycle. The arrangements on quota allocation that are being made are done very much in partnership with the industry.