Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Before we begin, I remind members and witnesses to turn off their mobile phones.

I welcome Ms Melanie Gomes from BirdWatch Ireland and thank her forming before the committee today. Ms Gomes wrote to me requesting permission to make a presentation to the committee on the setting of total allowable catches and quotas for 2015 in advance of the Council of the European Union meeting in December. The committee is happy to oblige.

Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they are to give to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect the parliamentary practice that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Ms Melanie Gomes:

I thank the Chairman for inviting me here today. I am here representing BirdWatch Ireland, but this presentation is also on behalf of the Irish Wildlife Trust and Coastwatch Ireland.

The title of my presentation is "Ending Over-fishing: The Setting of Total Allowable Catches for 2015". Setting correct fishing opportunities is fundamental to achieving the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy - namely, to end over-fishing and restore and maintain fish stocks above levels capable of producing the maximum sustainable yield. I will go into that later. I will cover the current situation as well as the consequences of ignoring the scientific advice ecologically and economically, the tools we have to implement the changes, and recommendations to the committee.

To set the scene, I am using a historical slide of the biomass of table fish in 1900. Biomass is basically a quantitative estimate of the total weight of commercial fish people would have eaten in 1900. The slide shows that around Ireland and on both sides of the Atlantic, there were over 8 tonnes of fish per square kilometre. The figure for Ireland was between 8 and 10 tonnes. If we skip on to 2000, we can see that there has been a reduction, with eight to ten times less biomass. These historical figures give an idea of what was there. According to figures from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization this year, 90% of global fish stocks are either fully fished or over-fished. I will explain later why this is not good for us economically.

As regards European stocks, there has been an increase in over-fished stocks from 39% to 41% in the north-east Atlantic since last year. The rate of over-fishing has also increased. In 2014, total allowable catches, TACs, were set at 35% above scientific advice. That was over three times more than the 2012 figures, which were 11% above the advice. The situation has therefore become worse. A crucial point is that fishery scientists set the advice according to what they believe will be saleable. Over-fishing has led to reduced profitability in the sector, with a rate of employment loss of 4% to 5% per year.

Not only is the setting of correct TACs and quotas fundamental to the achievement of the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy - namely, to end over-fishing and to restore and maintain fish stocks above levels capable of producing the maximum sustainable yield - but there is also a requirement under the CFP to favour more sustainable fishing vessels and to recycle. Member states should endeavour to give preferential access to small-scale artisan or coastal fishermen. I will not go into all the details because I do not have time.

The next slide shows the fixed quota allocation of 117 vessels from Northern Ireland. One vessel alone has over 50%. There is more to that, including what species are being fished. There are a couple of vessels under 10%, while the remaining 113 have 2% of the quota.

I looked for the Southern data but it is not publicly available. This relates to the recommendation in the report on sustainable rural and island communities as presented by the committee.
What are the consequences of ignoring the fisheries advice ecologically and economically? This relates directly to ecosystems, services and biodiversity. Biodiversity is the wealth of life on the planet - everything to small planktonic organisms to large fish and whales. Why is it so important? It relates to the healthy functioning of the marine ecosystem, particularly marine food webs. If there is an imbalance caused by a loss of biodiversity, this has knock-on implications for commercial and non-commercial species alike. Examples of ecosystem services include the assimilation of atmospheric gas and climate regulation. The oceans absorb 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per day. One predicted change is that mussels are expected to calcify, or make their shells, 25% more slowly by the year 2100. What does this mean for some of the commercial fisheries? Resilience is one of the key things about the importance of biodiversity. Biodiversity provides the resilience - the ability to bounce back and recover after both natural and anthropogenic, or human-induced, pressures.
Waste assimilation and nutrient recycling, food provision and productivity - these are all things I will not go into for time reasons. Biodiversity is also important from the point of view of social and cultural values - for example, consider the value of marine tourism. In a nutshell, marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality and recover from perturbations. The available data suggests that trends are reversible if addressed by urgent and effective action. To illustrate the consequences, a leading scientist from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Professor Jeremy Jackson, has stated: "Ecological extinction caused by overfishing precedes all other pervasive human disturbance to coastal ecosystems, including pollution, degradation of water quality, and anthropogenic climate change."He also stated: "Today, the synergistic effects of human impacts are laying the groundwork for a comparably great Anthropocene mass extinction in the oceans with unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences." Therefore, overfishing is a really important issue.
The slide entitled "Fishing down marine food webs" shows what has happened in, say, the Irish Sea. I apologise for the quality of the slide. At the top left of the slide, one can see large fish such as cod that would have been very prevalent in the past. As we fish further down the food chain, it is the invertebratesat the bottom, such as Dublin Bay prawns or nephrops, which become major fisheries, but below that there is not much to fish. Nephrops have a very high discard rate and, of course, discarding juveniles does not help them to recover. Implementation of the discards ban will be crucial in meeting the CFP targets effectively.
What does this mean for economics? The New Economics Foundation published a report in 2013 which showed that restoring 43 overfished European stocks to a biomass that supported their maximum sustainable yield, MSY - that is, the largest amount of fish that can be taken from the water while still leaving enough to produce new generations - would allow the landing of 3.5 million tonnes more fish each year, an additional €3.5 billion in revenues each year and 100,000 new jobs, or 31% more, in the EU fishing sector. It is important to remember that the MSY is a maximum limit.

The 2008 Sunken Billions report stated the economic losses in marine fisheries resulting from poor management, inefficiencies and overfishing added up to a staggering €40 billion per year. This report also argued well-managed marine fisheries could turn most of these losses into sustainable economic benefits for millions of fishers and coastal communities. It is not too late.

What tools do we have to implement change? First, there is the reformed Common Fisheries Policy which came into force on 1 January 2014. According to Article 2(2) of the policy, fishing opportunities must be set with the objective of progressively restoring and maintaining populations of fish stocks above biomass levels capable of producing MSY, maximum sustainable yield. This needs to be achieved by 2015 where possible and progressively and incrementally for all stocks not later than 2020. We need to restore stocks to levels above BMSY, biomass maximum sustainable yield, and fishing pressure needs to be reduced below FMSY fishing mortality maximum sustainable yield. Once above BMSY levels, stocks should be fished at rates slightly below FMSY to account for scientific uncertainty and fluctuations in stock sizes. Fishing below FMSY would also bring economic benefits due to the reduced costs of fishing on abundant stocks. In Australia, the maximum economic yield is 10% to 20% above the maximum sustainable yield. By doing so, it is taking less fish as a way of managing stocks.

The TACs, total allowable catch, decided at the forthcoming December Council will be set under that framework for the first time. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, will be representing Ireland to agree all the TACs. He will need to follow the legal requirement to set TACs in line with MSY objectives, subject to these deadlines. The onus is on Ministers to achieve the 2015 deadline with their decisions in December or explain why and how they will do it incrementally by some date up to 2020 instead.

There is additional legislation under EU environmental legislation such as the habitats directive, the birds directive and the marine strategy framework directive which has direct links to the Common Fisheries Policy. Changes to management of fisheries activities may be necessary for member states to meet these requirements. Article 11 of the reformed policy outlines the processes for adopting conservation measures to meet these environmental requirements.

Other measures include marine reserves or no-take zones, NTZs, which are areas fully closed to fishing and other activities. They form an essential component to any ecologically coherent marine protected area network to help secure a healthy ecological foundation. While they are not the only solutions, they are so effective at protecting and restoring biodiversity that they should be being maximised. We need the political will to do this. For example, increases were recorded of up to 100% of commercial scallops from the Isle of Man mobile gear closure of 2 sq. km in 1989, as well as a greater abundance in upright seabed fauna that has been linked to increases in the collection of scallop spat. Marine reserves can also have a positive effect on local tourism. For example, the 5.5 sq. km Leigh marine reserve in New Zealand attracts over 100,000 visitors per year and brings approximately NZ $20 million to the local economy each year.

The closure of the Georges Bank fishing area off the American east coast saw the greatest economic lay-off in history. Following the closure, scallop numbers increased approximately tenfold while haddock catches were between two to 15 times greater at the reserve boundary than elsewhere. Now 73% of the entire United States haddock catch is taken within 5 km of the closed area boundaries. Cod stocks, however, never recovered and are still an ongoing problem as they were overfished.

Set up in 2003, the UK’s first marine reserve, NTZ, was Lundy Island off the north Devon coast.

It allows stocks of commercial species to regenerate quickly. There has been a significant increase in the abundance of lobster and crab inside the NTZ - more than seven times as many. More breeding lobsters are also to be found inside the protected area. Other studies report that lobsters and their larvae then spill over. When they do, they go from inside the reserve to outside, benefiting local fishermen. One of the reasons this worked so well was local fishermen and the local community backed the project and it was wonderful to see it working it so well to help them and management of the sea.

I refer to our recommendations to the committee. Total allowable catches, TACs, must not exceed the scientific advice. ICES advises a level of catch consistent with the maximum sustainable yield, MSY. If the catches set by Fisheries Ministers exceed this, stocks will not recover and grow, ultimately hitting the fishing industry's bottom line. TACs in line with scientific advice on MSY have to be set for all stocks by 2015, where possible, and by 2020 in any event. Delays in achievement of this beyond this year's TAC decisions at the December Council are only possible if the social and economic sustainability of the fleet is not to be seriously jeopardised. If the 2015 deadline is not achieved, evidence of serious jeopardy must be provided and TACs that do not exceed MSY advice must be implemented progressively and incrementally before 2020. Any increase in the TAC for stocks subject to the discards ban - the landing obligation - must be subject to supporting evidence from ICES and limited in scope to ensure the total out-take will not jeopardise the CFP's MSY objectives.

  We need to allow for both natural and anthropogenic or human induced threats, unknown ecosystem interactions and mismanagement, known as the precautionary approach. TACs should be even more precautionary when there is more uncertainty. Ireland’s ecologically marine protected area, MPA, network needs to be implemented as a matter of urgency following best practice guidelines such as the IUCN and examples that have worked elsewhere environmentally, economically and socially. There should be a subset of community backed marine reserves or NTZs as a part of this. When policy is being made, the input of the environmentalists and ecologists needs to be listened to because that is the baseline for the social and economic long-term sustainability of fisheries, otherwise they will not be sustainable. I hope some of this will be taken on board following my appearance before the committee. I thank the committee very much.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Gomes for a clear presentation in which she matched economic and environmental concerns.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Ms Gomes for her presentation. She uses scientific analysis when it comes to conservation. While I respect a great deal of the scientific evidence, on its own it is not sufficient. Coming from a fishing background, I was always worried about the buy-in by fishermen because of exclusion. The best people to conserve stocks are the stakeholders who must survive off them. We have an oyster fishery in Tralee Bay which was decimated by overfishing and criminality, with people taking undersized oysters and so forth. Despite the attempts of the south-west regional authority and the South Western Regional Fisheries Board to conserve the fishery, the only way it could be conserved was through adopting a proactive approach by the fishermen who have turned it into probably one of the best policed fisheries in Europe. It is an example to every country. Stocks have recovered and the returns are assigned through quota, with the numbers fishing restricted through permits and everybody buying into this system.

It is done through departmental input and vesting the ownership of the process in the wider community. This has worked brilliantly and it is starting again next week. That is one instance.

I have serious reservations on the question of juvenile fish being taken from the sea and subsequently discarded. Insufficient scientific analysis has been done into the type of gear that is being used to create escapes for juvenile fish and so forth. The market demands prime fish. If a fisherman is trying to get the best possible price for his fish he is going to get the best quality, even if that means dumping twice the amount of fish that come into his nets over the side. A good deal of scientific work needs to be done on the type of gear being used and so forth.

I concur with much of what Ms Gomes said. If we do not conserve stocks, the big losers will be the stakeholders themselves, the people who are actually involved in fishing. It is their livelihood we are talking about. We have many reservations especially in respect of the quota system allocated to various countries and the allocation for Irish fishermen under EU quotas. The quotas are so small. This forces people to become involved perhaps in a type of fishing or certain activities that they would never get involved in otherwise simply in order to survive. It is wider than scientific data; that is the point I am making. We need an overall analysis of how best to conserve stocks with the support of fishermen while ensuring that they have an income from the type of work they do.

Ms Gomes referred to lobsters. Much has been done voluntarily in certain areas in respect of the notching of female lobsters to conserve stocks and so forth. A more mandatory approach should be taken to ensure stocks survive. Added pressures come on certain stocks as a consequence of decisions taken by Government, the European Commission and so forth. Let us consider what happened in this country in respect of salmon drift netting. At the stroke of a pen they wiped out the livelihood for many people who had a reasonable income for a period of the year. One consequence was that people who had been involved in salmon fishing transferred into lobster, cray fishing, gill netting and so forth, putting other pressures on those sectors.

We need an approach that is forward looking on the scientific side and on the economic feasibility side for fishermen. We need an approach that will secure buy-in from everyone involved, in particular, the stakeholders, to try to bring this around. I am looking at this strictly from an Irish context. I realise the point of view of Ms Gomes is global in respect of what needs to be done. I thank Ms Gomes for her presentation. It is quite informative and obviously she put a good deal of work into it. We differ on certain aspects, but that is healthy. If we all agreed-----

Ms Melanie Gomes:

I actually agree-----

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will let you come back in at the end.

Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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It is in all our interests to ensure that the maximum sustainable yield is maintained and sustained. There is a link to total allowable catch. We have to find a way to bring these together to ensure the stocks survive.

Ms Gomes referred to restoring 43 over-fished European stocks. She stated that 3.5 million tonnes of additional fish could be landed each year as a consequence, that an additional £2.7 billion in revenues each year could be generated and that 100,000 jobs could be created, with 31% more in the EU fishing sector. Could Ms Gomes send us on a list of the 43 over-fished European stocks, as well as some detail on the areas she was referring to and the areas that could benefit as a consequence of restoration?

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I will give you a minute to get organised, Deputy Pringle. Deputy Harrington had indicated. Does he wish to speak?

Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Chairman for his indulgence in allowing me to speak even though I am not a member of the committee. I welcome the witnesses and the presentation. Many of the recommendations in the presentation are not 1 million miles from what we hear as the intentions of our Department in respect of listening to scientific advice and meeting the total allowable catch, TAC, negotiations annually. That goes for increasing TAC for some species, where scientific advice recommends that, and decreasing it for other species, where the advice recommends that.

The difficulty we have is that Irish fishermen are deeply frustrated. When we see scientific advice coming from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, filtering through the Commission and European Council decisions, decreases come rapidly and hit the industry hard whereas scientific advice showing decreased fishing effort or conservation measures do not result in the same urgency in increasing TAC. This involves ICES, the European Commission and European Council.

Through the industry, I am aware that there is clear evidence that Celtic Sea cod, herring and other species have recovered somewhat but we do not get the same increase in total allowable catch. This refers also to an inordinate lag in time between the studies of the scientific community on fisheries and species, through ICES and the different organisations that feed into it and through to the decision-makers. It can take up to four years. For fishery stocks of some species, four years is much more than generational. Pelagic species, specifically, can recover quite quickly. This is not just because of conservation or other fisheries measures but also water temperature, climatic conditions or a host of inputs. The only one left at the end of the rope is the fisherman.

Despite evidence of what is happening on the ground, it is frustrating to see people being told that the story is quite different. However, the story could be quite old. It is a major problem. There is a major problem of trust between the stakeholders, the fishermen on the ground, the decision-makers and the scientific community. Until that is broached, consensus on maximum sustainable yield, MSY, and FMSY will be almost impossible. Until we get up-to-date scientific advice, trying to convince stakeholders on the undisputed merits of MSY and FMSY measures is a difficult proposition.

Is Ms Gomez familiar with the Irish fishing industry and the profile of the Irish fishing fleet? Almost three quarters of the fleet are smaller than 12 m. We only have 2.5% of the EU vessels and 3.7% of the gross registered tonnes and 3% of the European Union kilowatts. Some 60% of them were non-trawlers and many of them fish for non-quota species, where TACs are not set. The Irish fishing industry is very sustainable in terms of that fishery. It provides small catches for a large number of families in coastal communities and consistently gets bad press in some quarters because of indiscretions in other parts of the EU fishing fleet.

Does Ms Gomes have an opinion on the geopolitical effects? I refer specifically to the Faroe Islands and Icelandic issue as it affects the mackerel fishery and how it can influence decisions taken by the European Commission and other stakeholders on international treaties. It also affects coastal communities.

The vast majority of those involved in the Irish fishing industry, apart from those with the very smallest vessels, including the vessels under 12 m vessels that I mentioned, are engaged in the highly regulated pelagic sector which I submit is over-regulated. For example, there has been a huge dispute, in which there is now tentative agreement, about water being weighed as part of the TAC. This underscores the distrust between the industry and those charged with its regulation. I suggest the when talking about sea fisheries conservation in a global or European context, the quotas of other fleets such as the Spanish demersal fleet, the Dutch pelagic fleet, the French demersal fleet should be the focus of far more scientific scrutiny than that of the Irish fleet.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Ms Gomes has plenty of comments, observations and questions to which to respond.

Ms Melanie Gomes:

I will try to forward a copy of the New Economics Foundation's report which deals with stocks.

A question was asked about oysters, but I do not know whether they are of the Crassostrea or ostrea variety. We favour native oysters, partly because the other ones breed in Irish waters. I totally agree with Deputy Martin Ferris that we should back the locals because that is how the stock should be managed. He may have had another question, but I did not write it down. Did he have another question that I did not answer?

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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He said we should adopt a proactive approach to oysters. He also said he had serious reservations about how oysters were collected, that more work needed to be done on the quality of gear used and wondered whether stocks of juvenile oysters should be taken or discarded.

Ms Melanie Gomes:

I totally agree with him. Gear trials are taking place. Selectivity would be a very good way of implementing an effective discards ban. There is a lot of work to be done on the issue.

I will answer Deputy Noel Harrington's question on why there has been a rapid decrease. If we look at the scientific literature and the ICES statistics, we can see that, without a doubt, there has been overfishing. We would not be discussing this matter if it was not such a big problem and same urgency was not attached to it. People are now being more cautious because of what happened at the Grand Banks, which was disastrous. The Deputy claimed that cod in the Celtic Sea had been overfished, but I disagree. I know that the Irish fleet has 23 large pelagic vessels. There is an inshore fleet, but demersal fisheries are set differently.

The Deputy also asked my opinion on quota uplift. There should be no increase unless there is scientific evidence on discards from ICES.

We have to go on what we have. Fully documented fisheries and understanding from the fishermen of what they catch and having that documentation will help to manage what is happening.

I agree that some of the larger boats, such as those of the Spanish and Dutch, have a higher quota than Irish boats. Some of these rights are set as part of historical fisheries rights. However, that does not exclude Ireland from putting in responsible measures to try to help the situation for everyone. Herring in certain parts of areas VI and VIII of the Celtic Sea has a zero total allowable catch, TAC. Cod, haddock, sole and hake are overfished in areas of the region but are within requirements of this morning's stock biomass. Bass is also overfished in the Celtic Sea. That is this year's advice.

Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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What is the TAC on bass?

Ms Melanie Gomes:

It is overfished according to the Marine Institute, I believe, but it can correct me if I am wrong.

Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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By the UK and France, I suspect. We do not have a TAC on bass.

Ms Melanie Gomes:

I have a note that bass is overfished in areas, as well as herring, with the state of their spawning stock unknown.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Harrington, did the Marine Institute, in Ireland, play a role in gathering the information and is that information fed back to the Irish authorities and the EU Commission? How is that data communicated?

Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael)
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That information comes from the Marine Institute to ICES and then goes back in through the Commission.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Is there a way to short-circuit that? One of the recommendations of the sub-committee in its report was that impact data should be made available. If there is information that supports drift net fishing or heritage licences, as referred to by Deputy Ferris, and these were to be permitted on a trial basis the impact data should be made available. Fish numbers in every river, particularly salmon in this case, need to be counted. There was inadequate collection of data in the first place to establish the facts. The Marine Institute is a sophisticated organisation which should be able to gather very accurate data if tasked to do so. The graph shown for Northern Ireland demonstrates how a thing can be weighted totally by one major vessel. In the pelagic fleet in Ireland, I suppose there is a bit of that as well.

The committee would favour changing that balance. If that was the case, it is likely there would be a lower risk of reducing stocks below maximum sustainable yield, MSY, perhaps substantially. There are people who would totally disagree with this.

I agree with Deputy Harrington that we cannot do this in isolation. The European fleets are enormous compared to what we have. That is the bottom line here. Nobody disagrees with the principle of conservation because it is in everybody's interest.

It would be very interesting to see the research and the rationale behind the study on the 43 stocks.

It has been a very frustrating process for fishermen to see that the work they have put in over the best part of 15 years of conservation measures has not led to a corresponding benefit in terms of how they can approach the fishery in 2014. The precautionary principle is by definition always going to be behind the curve. If we are not going to bring the industry with us on these decisions, particularly the ones on the maximum sustainable yield, I do not know how we can enforce the kind of sustainable fisheries effort that is being advocated here. The scientific community and the decision-making bodies, the ISIS-Fish software developers and the Commission need to understand that. It is the same story whether it is Ireland, Spain or wherever. There has been a huge fracture in trust between the scientific community and the coastal communities that depend on fishing.

Ms Melanie Gomes:

It would be a wonderful thing if the industry would get behind this. Monitoring, enforcement, fully documented fisheries and all those things come into it. There is a lot of complexity in that. With the herring, if it has recovered, I do not know anything beyond the advice I got earlier on, which was produced by the Marine Institute. I am not on the sea every day so I cannot really answer that, but I am coming from a place where I am speaking for future generations. Because I am an ecologist rather than anything else, I can see more of what happens if we ignore scientific advice and keep taking without respecting the biodiversity of the earth. It is important to be more precautionary. Of course it does come back to all the different member states, but we are here in Ireland and there are so many positive things that actually could be done through actions with the locals and that kind of thing. If these things we are calling for were actually put in place it would help Ireland economically in the long term.

Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The point being made is that everybody buys into conservation. What is needed is trust and the establishment of relationships. Deputy Ferris highlighted the matter of the oysters. There must be buy-in, and it is the same in any sector - for example, greenhouse gas reduction in the agriculture sector. There must be trust. If the evidence says stocks are depleted and need to be conserved, we must have a reserve area and boxes knocked off from fishing, but when the evidence demonstrates clearly, through bodies such as the Marine Institute, that it is now possible to increase fishing, that information should be utilised in the same way. Good practice and goodwill from both sides are needed. Certainly, as an ecologist, Ms Gomes will understand that there is a balance between over- and under-stocked. If one knocks that balance out of kilter one will have all sorts of knock-on problems. When a group of us went to Scotland as a sub-committee to look at various aspects of shellfish fishing and aquaculture, we saw that the Scottish Marine Science Association was looking at multi-species fish farms. This was to create a healthier environment within a fish farm - an aquaculture site - and there is a lot of research going on into that. There are many different trials, research projects and experiments going on in order to nurture the sea. It is very important. The assimilation of 22 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per day is something in which sea life plays a part, but it is very important in the context of the planet.

This discussion has been useful, but I hope Ms Gomes gets the sense from committee members, including the one who was a fisherman in another life, that conservation is also in the interests of those who depend on the sea for their livelihood. They understand it better than anybody else. On some of their practices, it has been a question of survival, unfortunately, because of the failure to use up-to-date data to allow fishermen to return to driftnet fishing where it is sustainable to do so. This failure has also forced some to continue fishing a particular species to its detriment. That must also be borne in mind when people are reluctant to use information that might allow increases in stock. Is that a fair summary of the situation?
I thank the delegates for attending the hearing and providing clear and concise testimony for the committee. The clear message from the meeting is that sustainability and economics are one and the same. What is needed is goodwill and trust between the two sides, the scientific side and the fishing side, and a balance between the big players within the sector. In many ways, this balance is the most critical factor. As we argued in our report, if the traditional under-15m vessel was to fish Ireland's shores ad infinitum, it would never damage fish stocks. That is the bottom line. In reality, that will not happen, but it shows how one could conserve stocks if there was ever a way to do it.
That concludes our proceedings. We will meet again tomorrow morning to engage in pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the Horse Racing Ireland (Amendment) Bill 2014. That meeting will be attended by officials from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.