Mr. Jean-Paul Deveau:

I would like to respond to two specific questions asked by Deputy Ó Cuív. He asked about the seaweed species in the application submitted by Arramara. The application relates specifically to the ascophyllum nodosumand fucus species, which grow in the intertidal zone and are often interspersed. If ascophyllumwas the only species covered by the application, it would be next to impossible to ensure nothing other than ascophyllum would be harvested. There is always a by-catch associated with such harvesting. The Arramara application does not cover any other species of seaweed, such as laminaria, palmariaor chondrus crispus. They would have to be dealt with by means of other applications or through some other future approach.
The Deputy also asked about foreign workers. As I mentioned in my opening comments, we operate five processing facilities in very rural parts of Canada that are not dissimilar to the Connemara area. We have worked very closely with the local communities in those environments to ensure the seaweed is harvested by people from those specific communities. That system has worked extremely well. I will give an example of what I mean when I talk about "local communities". In Leitir Móir, we work with people from Leitir Móir. In other localised areas, we work with people from those areas. By working closely with local people as we have done in the Canadian examples I have mentioned, we have developed some very successful partnerships. People have been able to depend on this work for their livelihoods.
Some people prefer not to have to go to Dublin for work - not that there is anything wrong with Dublin - but they are not sure whether they can depend on work being available. People in rural communities need opportunities so they can depend on having an ongoing ability to get employment. We believe that if a proper licensed environment is in place in this sector, people will want to stay in their local areas and take up this kind of work on an ongoing basis. That is something very powerful, in our opinion. It puts the harvesting and processing communities in a position to be able to create value added products in a rural environment.