Mr. Jean-Paul Deveau:

I will deal with that issue as it affects other Irish companies. We have agreed to provide priority to the existing Irish customers of Arramara Teoranta, specifically those about which we spoke today. Those customers will have priority over the other customers of Arramara with respect to the raw material and products which the company manufactures. There are other organisations which have not historically purchased from Arramara and as I indicated earlier, the application made by Arramara does not in any way represent all of the seaweed resource in Ireland or the counties of Mayo, Galway and the northern part of Clare. There are areas for which other entities could apply. At this time, anybody can apply for anything. There were questions and comments earlier about who has the right to apply but everybody has the right to apply, although it is up to the Government to decide, based on the merits of the application, who should be selected. The Government may decide it does not want to hand out any licences and that is a decision the Government will make.

The Deputy asked about our plans and I want to take the time to articulate our vision for Ireland. I indicated earlier what we have been able to create in Canada, where we have been able to build an industry where one did not exist. We have five processing facilities, a research centre with 25 researchers and a sales and marketing department second to none. We have over 250 employees based in Canada doing those things.

The quantity of the seaweed resource that we are looking for is available in Ireland. We believe we can create in Ireland what we have done in Canada and provide value-added jobs in rural communities where they are needed. The wonderful part of this resource is that one needs to invest in the rural parts of Ireland, which creates the economic benefit that is so valuable for the regions in which this industry is located.

Our vision is to repeat what we have done in Canada. We have a wealth of experience in this specific seaweed, which is the exact same seaweed species. Although it took us 25 years to do what we have done in Canada, now we just can transfer the technology and do our share to leapfrog the development of the industry and create an industry that has not existed here in the past.