Mr. Richie Flynn:

Anyone looking at the seafood sector will have noted a sudden rush in official reports and consultation processes on aquaculture and seafood in general in recent months and it is safe to say there is some confusion about the role of each document. The information overload is felt by the industry as well. The 300 active producers of oysters, mussels, salmon, clams and trout that we represent, however, only want to hear about a clear plan to deal with the single biggest issue, namely, licensing. The total failure by successive governments to simply do their job has been hurting development, corroding confidence, ruining markets and stifling investment. All the industry asks is that the Irish State provides a clear, modern and transparent working licence system.

We have the operational programme for seafood and FoodWise 2025, which was launched last week and which had a lot to say about seafood. Over the next few days, the harnessing our ocean wealth plan will be launched in Cork. The matter before the committee is the national strategic plan for aquaculture, a bit of bed time reading. To put it simply, the NSP is a technical requirement from Brussels in which every Government in the EU sets out how they will spend a portion of what they get in European maritime and fisheries fund, EMFF, funding, as well as what those national Governments can put up to match that. For states like Spain, France, the UK, Denmark and Ireland, where the marine industry is important, this has gained a lot of attention and we are all operating at different speeds. The rules are set down and agreed in law and anyone who has been following the progress of the EMFF through Brussels will know that the rules have passed through the Commission, the Parliament and the Council. We have had a fair go at them, from the point of view of colleagues sitting around the table, and using the federations in Europe, to get to the new review. The Common Fisheries Policy review was overshadowed by the review of the Common Agricultural Policy review as the two were happening at the same time. We are dealing with the funding application of the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, review as our farmer colleagues have done with respect to their review.

The European Commission attached a high priority to aquaculture development in the new programme to offset imports of seafood into the EU and to address a greater demand for seafood while wild fisheries were static. There is a lot in the CFP about wild fisheries and aquaculture is just a portion of it.

The national strategic plan, NSP, is a virtual shopping list of potential investment headings, some of which are in the form of grant aid directly to farmers who must convince shareholders or lending institutions to assist them with at least 60% of the overall project cost. If they want to build a new shed, boat or put out trestles, they have to put up 60% of the cash. Up to 40% could be available in grant aid for capital costs if they fulfil a range of criteria first. It is not a hand-out. The NSP also contains schemes to fund State agencies on training, research and development and measures to alleviate hardship caused by long natural biotoxin closures for shellfish producers. We have seen such occurrences in the south west, particularly over the past 12 months. If the NSP comes into shape in its current form, the Minister will have funds available to look after people in such circumstances.

However, the entire NSP is purely waste paper, just like its predecessor the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, in which we handed back much funds. There were virtually no grants awarded for investment to my members or Irish small and medium-sized enterprises in the last fund. Investment in the industry came to a standstill. The fund was recycled into other areas while Irish fish and shellfish farmers watched as competitors in other EU member states accessed it. The reason for this was the same Department which could not deliver licences insisted that a licence was a pre-requisite to getting a grant.

The joint committee has had several submissions from IFA aquaculture and others over the years and has been supportive of a common sense approach to solving this problem. In the face of systematic inertia, however, it appears that even a cross-party committee cannot get the right people to roll up their sleeves and tackle an administrative issue. The committee is once again showing leadership in preparing a submission on the NSP. The IFA urges the committee to be focused and not distracted by irrelevancies.

We speak for the companies and individuals who have put their families’ futures on the line, who have re-mortgaged their houses and put their kids through college on the back of aquaculture. We speak for the people who want to hand over their farms to the next generation to farm the sites they set up in the 1980s and who want to be able to set out new development plans. We speak for the entrepreneurs who want to stay in their communities instead of making hard decisions in the face of yet another demoralising and frustrating six years of kicking the can down the road. It is time to have clear deadlines and achievable targets. It is time to change the emphasis in all these reports to focus on profitability rather than production targets. It is time to give our sales people and marketers something to work with and allow us the scale and continuity of production which customers want. Confidence will only come into this industry with clear deadlines in the NSP. The committee must remember two points, namely, clearing the licensing backlog in six months and setting a time limit of 30 weeks, or 150 days, from receipt of application to determination. These are simple, achievable and yet incredibly valuable targets for 2,000 people and 300 businesses around the coast.