Mr. Séamus Mac Eochaidh:

Ba mhaith liom cúpla focal a rá faoi cheist na feamainne. Mar atá ráite ag an tUasal Ó Cuív, tá neart féidireachtaí ann don earnáil sin. As my colleague, Mr. Maguire, mentioned, the principal issue in seaweed processing is the regulation of the supply. Tá a fhios agam go dtéann sé siar ó thaobh na feamainne de. A survey carried out approximately 13 years ago suggested that there was approximately 70,000 tonnes of ascophyllum nodosum, which is the most commonly-processed seaweed. The main processor is a company we own outright, Arramara Teoranta, which harvests 25,000 tonnes per annum. The problem is that while the Office of the Attorney General confirms that, as it sits below the high water mark, 98% of all seaweed belongs to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, it would be a brave Minister who would try to claim it. It is a traditional issue. To move to higher-value seaweed processing in the absence of establishing the claim requires substantial investment.

We have two companies in our remit, one of which we own 100%, which dries and mills 25,000 tonnes of Ascophyllum nodosum. Another company in our remit, in Donegal, extracts liquid from seaweed and the remaining by-product is used for soil enhancement. The drying extraction plant gets three times the value for liquid extraction compared to the drying and milling plant. Therefore, the drying and milling plant is almost like beef on the hoof in comparison.

To build a sophisticated liquid extraction plant would probably cost approximately €10 million, but we will not get anybody to put €10 million into an industry when they do not know where the supply will come from. This is a difficult issue, probably akin to turf-cutting in terms of people's perception of who owns or does not own the seaweed. We have seen the issue dealt with properly in places such as Halifax, where the state leases out an area and the company that gets the lease is responsible for sustainable harvesting of the seaweed. Ascophyllum nodosum, for example, can be cut back to four inches from the rock and it will grow again in four years.

I am not a scientist, but I am advised that seaweed, like other crops, benefits from being harvested and cut properly and sustainably. In Canada, the practice is to cut one foot per annum, which is done from boats. Currently there is nobody here responsible for the sustainable harvesting of seaweed. People can go to the shore and take all the seaweed. They can take the seaweed off the rock and then the plant is gone. The State has an obligation to regulate this resource for everybody's benefit.

Harvest 2020, an official Government report, states that 38,000 tonnes of seaweed is harvested annually. We can see how that is made up. Aramara harvests 25,000 tonnes, another company harvests approximately 12,000 tonnes of maerl and the balance is harvested by small suppliers. However, if one goes to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and inquires as to who has a licence to harvest seaweed, only the maerl harvester and one other harvester, which harvests laminaria in Kenmare Bay, have licences. Although the laminaria harvester has a licence, which took two years to obtain, he is not harvesting. Therefore, how is it that 38,000 tonnes are being harvested if there are no licences?

This seaweed is being harvested on a very simple basis. It is being done by individuals through a hand-cut process and is deemed to be for personal use. That is fine as far as it goes, but what if we want to expand the industry? In Japan, approximately 43,000 people make their livelihood from seaweed processing. This would probably equate to a livelihood for 3,000 people in Ireland. I reckon that no more than 100 people in Ireland are making a living from seaweed currently and there are no more than 50 million sales. There is no reason we should not have 1,000 people involved and 500 million sales, but we must regulate and sustainably harvest the crop.

In response to an cheist a d'ardaigh an Teachta Ó Cuív faoi cé mhéid species atá ann, Dr. Paul Connolly will know a lot more than me about that. In the last report I saw, approximately 13 species were mentioned as being possible to harvest commercially.

Mar focal scor, we have similar problems in general industry where the údarás operates as in the seaweed industry. For many years, significant amounts of money were spent on academic research, but the industry was not commercialised and the commercial companies had not caught up with the research. I am glad to say this is beginning to happen, particularly in NUIG, where the science is really beginning to unlock the benefits of seaweed. I have seen French products that cost €100 per gramme because of the use of a little extract from a seaweed plant. That is where we need to be, rather than drying and milling stuff and sending it all over the world as a commodity product. The potential is enormous, but if we do not have regulation, we will not have investment to unlock that potential.