Mr. Donal Maguire:

I thank the Chairman and members for the opportunity to address the committee. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, estimates that the European Union is currently running a seafood trade deficit of some €16 billion per annum. In effect, the EU is importing well over 60%, if not closer to 70%, of the seafood its population is consuming.

Plainly, this is not sustainable, either from a balance of trade point of view or from the perspective of ensuring that the Union has a secure seafood supply into the future.

The European Commission has recognised the urgent need to increase the supply of indigenously produced seafood raw material and has concluded that this objective can only be achieved by injecting renewed vigour into the EU's somewhat stagnant aquaculture sector, particularly as the wild catch is already at its maximum sustainable yield, MSY, in the case of most of the major fisheries that fall under the Common Fisheries Policy. Aquaculture affords coastal communities an alternative opportunity to diversify and can also alleviate fishing pressure on stocks. As part of its efforts to stimulate increases in output from aquaculture, the European Commission has required all member states, including Ireland, to provide a multi-annual strategic aquaculture development plan as an ex-anteconditionality of accepting their overall seafood development operational programmes under the European maritime and fisheries fund, EMFF, funding regulation. Those actions which member states may wish to take and fund using a mix of public and EU funding to encourage growth in their aquaculture sectors must be set out in their strategic aquaculture development plans if they are to qualify for EU co-financing under the EMFF funding regulation.

Ireland’s aquaculture sector is multi-species, involving both finfish production in freshwater and seawater and shellfish production in the sea. In 2014 it employed 1,833 persons on a full and part-time basis and the first sale value of the output was €115 million. BIM welcomes the publication, for public consultation, of the draft national strategic plan for sustainable aquaculture development by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. In particular, BIM welcomes the draft report’s primary objective, which is to sustainably grow the annual production of the Irish aquaculture industry from the current level of approximately 37,000 metric tonnes per annum by a further 45,000 tonnes by 2023. The report outlines 24 specific actions in total, which represent positive initiatives for the development, growth and sustainability of the sector. Ireland has a favourable natural resource base for the development of aquaculture and BIM is of the view that this market-driven sector holds out significant potential for the creation of valuable coastal employment, increased export revenues and to act as a source of additional raw material supply to the seafood processing industry. The drivers and constraints acting upon Irish aquaculture enterprises are set out in the plan, as are a range of planned actions designed to address the problems that impinge upon its expansion.

BIM notes with interest the new scaling guidelines for offshore salmon farms provided by the Marine Institute in the draft report. These new guidelines may offer a route to achieving greater consensus among all marine stakeholders with regard to the planned growth of the marine salmon farming sector in Ireland. As the State agency with the primary responsibility for the development of Ireland’s aquaculture industry, BIM will reflect these guidelines in any future aquaculture licence application or development initiatives it is involved in, if and when the draft guidelines are adopted after the current consultation phase.

With regard to the long-standing application for a salmon farming licence in Galway Bay - which was submitted in 2012 by BIM with scientific support from the Marine Institute - BIM awaits the outcome of the current consultation process. Once that is complete, it will carefully reflect on such new policies as may emerge and it will then act appropriately and in accordance with Government and ministerial policy.