Mr. Jean-Paul Deveau:

Obviously, if we look at the harvesting of seaweed over the past 67 years and at specific patches, that harvesting has been done in a sustainable manner. Therefore, the sustainability of the resource is real. The challenge arises when one looks at the sustainability of the industry and the totality of the resource in Ireland.

I will use a fictitious number for illustrative purposes. If, for example, we had a total resource of 100,000 tonnes, sustainable on an annual basis, that is the maximum amount that could be harvested. This brings us back to Deputy Ó Cuív's question on the difference between seaweed and farming cows. We could have an infinite quantity of cows, but the seaweed is finite. Only a certain amount of it can be harvested before cutting into the principle of the resource. Therefore, if an industry developed and was harvesting 120,000 tonnes per year, there would be nothing left after a couple of years. While the individual patches would regrow, we would have now caused a situation where individual harvesters would not have anything to harvest and the industry could no longer depend upon the raw material and would have to scale back its operations and, perhaps, suffer plant closures.