Mr. Michael Keatinge:

I am Michael Keatinge, fisheries development manager in BIM. I also look after the training division. A number of points have been raised and I will deal with them in no particular order.

Deputies Ferris and Ó Cuív mentioned V-notching. This is one of the few success stories we have and is to be commended. Members will all be aware it is a co-operative arrangement whereby berried female lobsters are returned live to the sea and the State pays half the cost and the fishermen the other half. There is a considerable monitoring input of this from fishermen. This year, we will probably spend approximately €80,000 on the arrangement. This is not a plea for more money, but we are accommodating everybody who comes to us with regard to that programme. With regard to our lobster stock, I echo a point made already in the context of seaweed as to whether we could get more from our lobster stock and other inshore fishery stocks. I will defer to Dr. Connolly on this, but I think we all agree the chances are we could. It is down to management.

Natura will provide a significant input into the management process. Dundalk Bay was mentioned; the cockle harvesting in that bay is extremely well managed. As Deputy Ferris said, management involves local input. The surprising thing is that the fishery management plan under which Natura operates comes from the fishermen. The State agency's role - certainly BIM's role - is to assist the fishermen in producing their plan. That plan is then assessed by the Marine Institute to ensure it is compliant with the requirements of Natura. The development of the plans has been a tortuously slow process. We have looked at Roaring Water Bay and we are looking at Kilkieran Bay, Clew Bay, Lough Swilly and a number of other areas. There is an ongoing process with the European Commission to clarify precisely how the whole programme will operate. Other member states have laboured slightly and have lacked a deep understanding of the situation, but that is not necessarily our fault. Some of the delay is due to the legislation itself. It is a matter of interpretation. Developing the plans has taken longer than it should have, but down the line they may prove successful.

The question was raised as to whether we envisage enhanced income and benefit for local communities through more local ownership. My personal view is that this offers an avenue for exploration. A number of fisheries have traditionally been vested in local ownership. Tralee oyster fishery and Kilkieran Bay have been mentioned. Local ownership poses some problems. It is like the old adage of the chicken and the egg. The question is who will have first ownership and how will the process be managed. It would be wrong to raise those intellectual barriers because that type of well-managed locally owned fishery can prove extremely beneficial to communities.

Mention was made of the drift net ban. There was never a drift net ban. The ban was on weak stock fishing of salmon. When and if those stocks return, fishermen will be able to use drift or draft nets. It will not matter then if they catch them with harpoons. The committee that looks at this problem year on year is the standing scientific committee, which was originally attached to the now abandoned national salmon commission. The standing scientific committee carries out an assessment annually of the rivers, the conservation limit and where we stand in respect of the conservation limit. I do not want to get into specific details, but I am aware that the committee had Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, before it previously in connection with Arranmore, and that the point would have been made that Arranmore seems to be at a crossroads, with fish passing by that are destined for a multiplicity of rivers, not just in Ireland but also on the continent. A net put in the water there will not only take fish destined for a river that is in surplus but will also take fish destined for rivers that are, perhaps, not in surplus.

There is an important point to be made. In some of our rivers, where we are beginning to see strong numbers of returning salmon, it is vital that the new distribution is fully utilised. Traditional wild-catch fishermen, along with their angling colleagues, must be able to enjoy the surplus. We should not lose sight of this. I do not wish to be unduly specific, but I will mention the Moy. There are 26,000 surplus fish in the Moy this year. This begs the question of who can access those fish. We could have a valuable export market in wild salmon, which attract huge prices on the continent. This is an issue we should look at. Questions must be asked as to how the surplus can be managed and utilised. We must ask whether there are new opportunities for traditional fishermen to devolve into managing an upstream trap with a smoking or processing ancillary business attached to it.

We see rivers such as those in Waterford beginning to recover. The Nore and the Suir have both recovered. Unfortunately, the Barrow has been a problem and has not fully recovered. This raises the question of whether the conservation limit has been set too high because there has been human intervention on that river. As on Arranmore, there are fishermen in Passage East and Cheekpoint who did not take the buy-out and are waiting for the day when they will be allowed to begin fishing again. It is important that those involved in that particular process recognise that not everyone took the compensation. There was never a ban on drift-net fishing; there was a ban on mixed stock fishing. If a river is below the surplus but then gets back to that level, fishing should reopen. Scientifically, that is possible.

The issue of labelling was raised and the point has been well made by my colleague in the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority. We are involved in a good project with the SFPA and the fishing industry in this regard. We are all well aware of what has happened in the meat sector. To say there is no substitution in the fishing industry would be perhaps to tell a lie. Everyone is aware that at times one could happily eat a haddock and it is every bit as good as cod. Why not? Some of the lies that may be told are not necessarily as black as others. That being said, it is important that we build credible labelling, traceability and assurance around our seafood. It is essential to exploit what is a natural product in the fashion we can and the example of using a special area of conservation, SAC, to our advantage is a good one.

There has been a consistent policy within Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM, in the past 15 years to devolve our staff along the coastline. I hope the Deputies and Senators here are more familiar with their local BIM officers, whether in Galway, Kerry or wherever, than with us. There is a strong sense of participation at an agency level. For example, one of the initiatives we are currently working on, which the committee may wish to come back to, is the roll-out of the European Fisheries Fund Axis 4, which is similar to the Leader programme and works in conjunction with Leader, but is a new source of funding to underwrite the types of initiative I believe the committee is focusing on, including how we create new and devolved opportunities in areas that are otherwise going through a change and how we create an interface between the fishing of the past, the marine skill-set and marine tourism. There are many opportunities in these areas. Those who are familiar with many parts of the country, not least Dunmore East, Kilmore Quay or parts of Galway or Donegal, see that process taking place. The coastline is not all made up of Killybegs and Castletownberes; far from it. Axis 4 is something that will re-emerge during the next round of funding from Brussels and something that could be used in future to complement, not compete with, the work that has already been done by Leader, but with a much stronger focus on maritime and marine-related activities. That is something we would see as a positive outcome.