Mr. Michael Keatinge:

In the light of the downturn in the economy we placed caps on our grants. Instead of giving one person a very large grant, we decided that there would be a cap on the amount of grant aid available, depending on the size of the operator; for example, smaller boat operators received a smaller grant. That was part and parcel of allowing us to move the number of grants from 142 in 2013 to 1,500 in 2014. While messages sometimes are lost, I genuinely think we are sensitive to the needs of the wider sector. We have lost more than half of our fisheries development staff, but we still maintained a presence in all counties around the coast to ensure there was some connectivity between us, as an agency, and local communities.

I am disappointed that the European Commission is painting us in a poor light when it comes to the FLAG programme. I accept that the scheme was late in being delivered, but 2013 was its first year and €91,000 was a paltry sum. The following year we were up to over 450 grants, although I accept that the money still appears small. Later this week the new European maritime and fisheries fund will be put out for consultation. All of the different programmes, including negative ones such as decommissioning but also the FLAG programme, will be the subject of public consultation, the result of which will determine the level of funding to be allocated to the FLAG programme from 2016 onwards. It has been our intention to increase the moneys available by a factor of ten. Time will tell if that is delivered, but it is beyond my capacity to change it.