Mr. Michael Keatinge:

I will deal with Deputy McNamara's question regarding wild salmon. The figures are from a report of a standing scientific committee and are not BIM figures per se. Unfortunately, there is no figure for the Shannon above Parteen. It would not be a matter for me to discuss that with this committee, rather I would direct the Deputy towards the standing scientific committee who should make its full report available to him. The point I was trying to extract is that there are a considerable number of wild salmon that are now available beyond the conservation limit, many of which are correctly exploited by the sea angling sector. However, there remains an opportunity for the previous wild salmon catching sector, in particular those who did not avail of the buy-out, to access some of these fish. That is an important point. I recognise the specific difficulty that attaches to Arranmore because of its geographical location, but the wider point is more important, that there are scientifically assessed surplus fish. We should be in a position to ensure, whether through diversification projects or otherwise, access to those fish for wild salmon fishermen.

Moving on to the point about wider diversification opportunities in the context of training, the members of the committee will be aware that BIM maintains the National Fisheries College. We have a campus in Greencastle and it has been established since the late 1960s. We have a school in Castletownbere and we have two active mobile training units - we used to have three - which bring our training facilities right around the coast, in particular to those places that are far removed from Greencastle or Castletownbere. Those dedicated professional staff have done a tremendous job over the years. We do not simply provide training for fishermen. We also provide it for aquaculturalists and work boat handlers. We do passenger boat licensing for recreational fisherman. The sea angling fraternity would do licences with us. We are embarking on a new programme of extending that training deeper into the fishing industry at the deckhand level and on the day boat level.

Specifically in terms of diversification, if the aquaculture sector develops, there is a need for more trained skilled persons to operate within that sector, whether it be to operate small boats, work on the farms and so on, and there is a range of training in which we would engage. We look to colleagues to Údarás na Gaeltachta to work with us, and they have done so successfully for many years. We also have a programme with local schools at transition year level in Connemara. It is a wonderful programme that we have run for many years. We normally run a training course on Inishmaan each summer with the local transition year students.

One of the analyses I did recently for a report for our parent Department involved examining the annual economic returns for the past three years. These are provisional reports. I sound a note of caution to the committee regarding the numbers. It appears, as we might have expected, that during recent years we have seen a drift back towards the fishing sector on the part of people who previously may have had jobs in the construction sector. Some 150,000 jobs were lost in that sector. In excess of 500 people have come back into the fishing industry in the past two to three years. That is an important and perhaps overlooked fact. Those people need training. We will never perhaps reach a point where we are entirely accident free in any industry. If we have learned one thing from Iceland, it is that managing the stocks is not about bringing in rafts of new legislation. We can bring in legislation that states "thou shalt wear a life jacket and thou shalt do X, Y and Z". Managing the stocks is more about education rather than simple enforcement. We did not come here today with a plea for additional legislation. We need to create a culture of compliance, which is a term the SFPA has used very successfully, to generate an ethos of training. That is something in which we strongly believe.

In regard to inshore mackerel, we have developed, as part of our inshore initiative over the years, a small but highly successful line of caught mackerel fishery, and we assisted the inshore fishermen with hand gurneys to catch fish by line. We have become a victim of our own success. Even a small boat might take 20 tonnes or 30 tonnes in a season but if we have 1,000 people doing that, that amounts to 30,000 tonnes, which is half the apparently huge quota of 60,000 tonnes. At times one can become a victim of one's own success. We should not limit this solely to mackerel; we have done it with pollock.

In terms of the work of the committee, if we consider brown crab, shrimp, lobster, crayfish, whelk, razorfish and a myriad of these stocks that are not subject to total allowable catch and quota, I reiterate my earlier point that managing these stocks is not about bringing in rafts of new legislation. Managing them into the future is about co-operation and creating consensus within the fishing community. I believe, but I will defer to Dr. Connolly, that all those stocks, almost without exception, could produce a higher yield.