Dr. Peter Heffernan:

Thank you, Chairman. It is a privilege for me, on behalf of the institute, to have the opportunity to meet the committee today. I will give a short overview of the general spread of work of the institute for those members who may not be familiar with us, although I know several are.

We will be happy to take questions or provide further detail on some of the topic areas I will cover rapidly.

The institute is a statutory body with key functions spanning what we generally understand as fishery science, advice to the Government on the environment, food safety issues, scientific and oceanographic services and understanding the marine ecosystem. One unit focuses on shipping and maritime development services and is responsible to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and a corporate services function. We provide five key families of services for the Government, including scientific advice; monitoring and assessment services; preparation of strategic research planning and policy advice for the Government related to the marine. We manage and operate key national marine science infrastructure, including research vessels, unmanned submarines and data buoy networks. We conduct research and have succeeded very well in winning significant earnings from foreign competitive research programmes that provide substantial employment. We also fund research and design and advise the Government on funding programmes related to marine areas both by us and in conjunction with other Government parties. That is a very substantial part of our work to which I will allude in the presentation. A very important area of our work is mapping the seabed because more than 90% of our territory is land under the Atlantic Ocean.

We have a broad budget of €25 million in grants from the Government and an additional €11 million from sources such as competitive EU research programmes, while approximately 30% and above of our turnover is generated by non-voted income from the Government.

One of our key areas of service which has a very long track record in the Marine Institute and prior to its establishment is fishery science advice. Fisheries are living through a rapid change process, as many committee members are aware, through the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy which was secured during the Irish Presidency of the European Union. Ireland sits on some of the richest fisheries in all of the European Union. Approximately 1 million tonnes of fish are captured every year, with a value of €1.2 billion. Ireland's share of these fishing opportunities represents approximately 23% by tonnage and 17% by value. The Marine Institute works with international groups providing independent scientific advice for the management structure for the Common Fisheries Policy, a partnership between the Commission and member states. We provide annually the most comprehensive stock book showing the state of stocks in the Irish territories of relevance to Ireland. This is formulated in partnership with international scientists, but it is the envy of many countries in Europe because of the information it has provided for almost 20 years to successive Governments to negotiate on behalf of the State in the management of fish resources. The new Common Fisheries Policy will require significant development of science capacity and knowledge of the ecosystem approach and I am confident that the Marine Institute is well equipped to meet that challenge and has funded significant research to back it up.

In addition, we provide a wide range of services related to environmental food safety and the conditions within which the marine food produced within this country, 90% of which is exported, can access the market and have a good competitive standing for that business. Our services include food safety monitoring in conjunction with national and international food safety authorities. In 2011 we had a major success when, after several years of research, Ireland led the way in changing the regulatory monitoring programme EU-wide, moving away from mouse bio-assays to very sophisticated chemical analysis. That research was started and is conducted in the Marine Institute and we brought the regulatory authorities across Europe to a new regime which was signed off on by all stakeholders, regulatory authorities, governments and the Commission. That is a demonstration of the scientific calibre and capability within our teams. Fish health licensing support and advice, sea lice monitoring and research in all of these service areas are particularly important.

A matter of note which has featured in the newspapers this year concerns harmful algal blooms and their natural occurrence. In 2011 we started a significant research project for national funding and succeeded in winning a large EU award. Earlier this year that project, AZIMUTH, received the highest accolade of the COPERNICUS award for best earth-monitoring service in the European Union. This involves the ability to use ocean observation satellite monitoring to generate a predictive capacity for when there might be or might about to be harmful algal bloom to assist shellfish farmers in preparing for and managing their stock around that event which occurs naturally but is not easily predicted.

A new and emerging area of great significance and importance to Ireland and the global marketplace is where ICT meets the ocean. Ireland can really succeed because our industrial complex research expertise built up in universities can be applied in marine business opportunities, from fisheries to renewable energy and ocean energy development, through monitoring the ocean. The ocean to the west of us is strategically important not only to Europe but also to the world in order to understand climate change which we can study with new technology, new eyes. Ireland is very much to the forefront in Europe in the design of programmes to do this, working with multinationals and SMEs across the country and a range of university groups. This is an area that I believe will bear great fruit for Ireland.

Seachange is the name of the research funding programme for the period 2007 to 2014. Through it the Marine Institute has sequentially invested up to €60 million in creating new teams with expertise in areas such as computing, ICT, modelling sensor technologies, ecosystem approaches to fisheries biotechnology and bio-discovery. We have also catalysed the ability of other funding agencies and drawn in science funding from other bodies that would not traditionally have regarded the marine as an important area. We have been very successful, with several Irish universities, in winning record levels of EU funding in recent years. That funding has exceeded €60 million from all sources, which would rank the marine as the sixth largest funding area in the European funding programmes in the period of the seventh framework programme. It has created and supported over 150 jobs and there will be over 200 jobs before the programme is over. In the next seven years several hundred jobs will be created. These are jobs for graduates, like my son in Australia. The first job presents a significant opportunity in science and engineering and we are confident that these opportunities can be created through externally won resources in Ireland. This, to all intents and purposes, is like an export of services and generated on the basis of investments made wisely in Ireland, a capacity built in the past 20 years that has eliminated our deficit in that space and enabled us to compete with the best in the world in marine science and engineering.

Over 90% of Irish sovereign territory, over 200 million acres, is underneath the Atlantic Ocean. It is incredibly important for us to be competitive in the science, knowledge and ability to generate wide uses, prudent planning for and the ability to generate the socio-economic potential of that resource. Members may have read in the newspapers this morning about the discovery of a new biotope, as it was called, located in the south west corner almost at a 45° angle from the border between County Kerry and County Cork on what is a vertical cliff of over 700 m discovered by the Irish research vessel, Celtic Explorer, using an unmanned submarine called John Holland, with a team of researchers led from NUI Galway in collaboration with Queen's University, Belfast and international partners.

This is a revolutionary discovery, details of which are published today, but the funding for that work was commenced in 2011. The team which created that knowledge was aided by funding from the Marine Institute the previous year by means of the Beaufort award for biodiscovery. These unique habitats in deep high pressure environments house significant opportunities for development of pharmaceutical and medical applications. The mix of animals is unique such as oysters at a depth of 700 m, other shellfish and a mix of corals that could be centuries old. This is a very significant discovery. The knowledge it will create will be capable of winning and creating jobs in Ireland in the years ahead.

The seabed survey is the largest civilian underwater mapping project in the world. Ireland is at the forefront of this sphere of activity and we are executing the project in co-operation with the Geological Survey of Ireland. The European Commission has cited the project as the exemplar of how to map a nation's territory. Commissioner Damanaki wants this method of mapping of territory to be adopted by other European states.

I could show the committee images from 15 years ago when Ireland was "out-invested" by a ratio of 40:1 in mapping the knowledge and also in the science and information on fish stocks in these territories. We have moved from that behind-the-ball scenario to the current position where Ireland is conducting nearly 60% of the research in our sovereign territory. That is a massive turnaround of the equation in Ireland's favour in that time. The two research vessels operated by the Marine Institute have been fundamental to that achievement.

Members will be aware that the Government has created a horizontal mechanism across government to enable policies to be developed more cohesively. It is a common problem in all European and international nations that many elements of the marine portfolio are housed in some administrations in up to 12 Departments - across eight in our case. The horizontal mechanism aims to join these areas as best as possible against the reality of vertical management in Departments. The quarterly reports on the implementation of this plan are available on our website, www.ouroceanwealth.ie. An annual report will be issued in 2014, with plans for an annual conference, showing the progress achieved by Ireland in this area. I emphasise that during the Irish Presidency the horizontal mechanism which is supported by the Marine Institute enabled Ireland to present to Europe far-reaching and leading positions in terms of the application of science and knowledge to marine resource development. During the Presidency it resulted in the Atlantic plan, with integrated maritime policy being agreed to and deemed a success. It has resulted in significant funding opportunities which will be announced in Horizon 2020 - a funding programme of €72 billion from the European Commission for the next seven years. The capacities being built in Ireland are very well aligned and targeted to take advantage of these competitive funding opportunities. We have been investing in capacity-building for the past seven years in order to position ourselves well and we have significantly influenced the direction of Europe's Atlantic policy. We had a tremendous success at the end of May in having the joint agreement negotiated between the European Union, Canada and the United States on a transatlantic ocean research alliance, signed in Galway and witnessed by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney. This achievement was greatly assisted by Irish diplomacy during the Irish Presidency. This augurs well for bilateral agreements with both the United States and Canada and also in the context of broader EU collaborations. The funding package for Horizon 2020 will be voted on this week in the European Parliament and announced in December. We are confident that it will greatly benefit competitive proposals from Ireland.

I brought with me a three minute clip from National Geographic which I thought would be of great interest to the committee. I must apologise, but, unfortunately, the system here is unable to run it in the time available. I guarantee it would be three minutes well spent if the members were to watch the CD. It shows the Irish national research vessel travelling halfway between Ireland and the United States to a site halfway between the Azores and Iceland. On that part of the Atlantic sea floor that splits apart by the height of a man in a lifetime new rocks from volcanic activity have been created. For the first time, in July 2011, a team of scientists from Cork, Galway, the Geological Survey of Ireland and a UK team from Southampton made a discovery of hydro-thermal vents in the area. This was from the Irish research vessel, which is funded by the Marine Institute, in deploying an Irish unmanned submarine down a mountain face 3 km deep in the middle of the Atlantic to discover these black smokers, which are pillars of rock - new volcanic rock - up to 40 m high. It has been named the Moytura field which comes from the plain of the pillars in Irish mythology. These pillars produce black smokers which look, to all intents and purposes, like smoke, but it is actually water at up to 400 degrees centigrade. It is black and enriched with methane and sulfides that would be toxic to 98% of life on the planet. However, the area contains a huge life system which survives at these temperatures and toxicities. The system is very important in understanding how the ocean works and also for new pharmaceutical, medical and biotechnological applications. This was an Irish team demonstrating its ability, with Irish infrastructure, to conduct world-class ocean research. This achievement was broadcast globally by National Geographic in late 2012.

I hope I have not exceeded my time allocation in making this presentation. The Marine Institute is very positive about the potential for Ireland to generate new income, as well as socioeconomic and environmental benefits through understanding the oceans. I am happy to take questions from members.