Dr. Peter Heffernan:

I thank members.

As Senator Mac Lochlainn pointed out, our key role in the general agricultural licensing arena is in the provision of the scientific and technical advice to a particular application. One of the great delaying and frustrating factors for everybody involved in the arena in recent years has been the judgment against Ireland in the context of compliance with EU legislation. Ireland found itself on the wrong side of an EU court judgment, which meant that Ireland had to undertake a significant body of new science surveying bay by bay across every area that was designated under those special areas of conservation, SACs, or special protection areas, SPAs. That took a very significant scientific lift during the worst period of the fiscal crisis. However, I am glad to say that by the scientific effort on the part of the institute, in partnership with several other agencies - including the Department's agencies represented here today and the National Parks and Wildlife Service - we provided the scientific basis for the creation of appropriate assessments, which was a critical step against the conservation objective. The provision of those assessments bay by bay allows the licensing authority with confidence to deal with the license application and the progressive backlog. We will have the vast bulk of all that work completed in the fiscal year ahead, which will cover the vast bulk of licensed activity pending or seeking renewal. The backlog has been a significant source of frustration for everybody involved on the State side and the private sector side of planning for agriculture. There is a very significant body of support in this regard, and I am sure BIM will articulate that in the context of support for agriculture developments in the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, programme in the period ahead. We are nearing the end of that tunnel of the pipeline of provision of appropriate assessments across all the key bay areas.

The key role the institute provides in the issue of coastal erosion is the operation of a coastal data buoy network. Buoys M1 to M5 and M7 are in situproviding real-time, hourly, satellite-transmitted information on the state of the oceans. We are increasingly building an integrated digital ocean picture from a multitude of data sources - fisheries, environmental and coastal. We seek to be and will be increasingly strong partners in the national effort for long-term flood forecasting led by the OPW, in partnership with Met Éireann, with which we operate the data buoy network. We are very ambitious about the development of an Irish capacity to be in a global leadership position. We argue that that is the capacity Ireland requires, given the scale of our marine resources, to understand what is being driven by climate change, what are natural challenges and the scale of the risks and how to mitigate those risks, be it coastal erosion, shifting of fish stocks or opportunities created by the changes.

One thing is certain: things are changing in the ocean and they are changing more quickly than predictions, not only for fish stocks but also for the survival of life on this planet. Mankind needs to know that. One of the benefits of the Atlantic Ocean Research Alliance is that the scale of the scientific undertaking is bigger than any one country but that, because of the Galway statement, the EU, Canada and the US are all aligned to work together on the big lift. If I were to simplify it, I would say it is a question of mapping it and observing it. It is worth thinking, for example, how much we take for granted in how we are able to observe with the aid of satellites. One can see one's back garden with the aid of satellites but one cannot see a mile under the sea floor. A satellite cannot penetrate the ocean. It can give one a picture of the ocean surface, the surface layers and the temperature and brilliant scientists are able to turn those temperature readings into an image of the sea floor. However, the work on the transect from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Galway showed last year that a mountain on the sea floor was inaccurate on a vertical scale by between 1 km and 2 km and east to west or north to south by 2 km plus. Over £120 million was the original award for the contracts for the search for the Malaysian airliner which went down on 8 March 2014 and which has still not been located. The search area has been increased by 50%. The search company's gear hit a volcano and the company lost that gear because it did not know the volcano was in front of it. These are among the best survey companies.

If water is taken away, the sea floor constitutes 70% of the surface of this planet, and less than 10% of it has been mapped. However, Ireland is a world leader in mapping its marine territory and is so recognised. It is great to go to international meetings at which Ireland is held up as the poster boy or girl for being able to do this. We kept it alive with funding through the then Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources through the worst of the fiscal crisis because there was a real sense that this was an achievement by Ireland against a very tough backdrop.

For coastal erosion, the build-up of the science capacity and the integrated digital systems is important. I mentioned the seabed cable in Galway Bay. That is a very important first investment by Ireland to be a leader in playing in that big arena and to be able to make forecasts about the ocean. The ocean will influence every sector, be it shellfish, safety, salmon production, mackerel or herring. Nature will push us around a lot more than we will push it around, so we need to understand it. It is a big piece of real estate with a huge volume of water in it. We have a lot to offer regarding coastal erosion, but not exclusively in university centres such as the UCC centre, which is world-class and does fantastic work on design.

I would say most piers and harbour protection plans were designed or modelled there in tanks that model ocean energy devices for prototype developers.

Deputy McConalogue asked about the nature of the challenges. Any agency could come in here and tell members it needed more resources, but set against the scale of Ireland's marine territory, a quantum step in our investment is justified and it would return to us. An independently verified cost-benefit analysis on the seabed mapping exercise shows a return of between four and six times the original investment. Creating knowledge and being able to use that knowledge pay back big time. Given the scale of Ireland's resources, progressing the economic objectives in the integrated marine plan to get to the figure of €6.4 billion will justify increased investment by the State when resources permit.

We have had to adapt to, react to and live with the reality of the fiscal crisis and I commend the team around me, and the staff at the institute, on the way they have demonstrated their ability to keep their cutting edge and to keep winning European money when the system did not even allow us to employ people with 100% funding from such resources. We are in an era in which there is a welcome delegated sanction mechanism to replace the public sector. We are competing very well for resources and creating employment opportunities and these are the primary initial pathways to growth. We await the outcome of budget Estimates and provisions for next year.

My colleague will comment on the specifics on some of the work being done on the fish stocks. Brexit will afford many more challenges than opportunities. In some niches there may be opportunities, but we have many successful partnerships with Scottish, Welsh, English and Northern Irish bodies and they are very important to our scientific work as it is structured at the moment. They are important for the work done through EU reference labs on, for example, seafood safety, and we are going to have to watch what happens very carefully. We are doing a lot of analysis on the potential impact and we will be very busy in the years ahead in supporting several Departments with scientific advice, analysis and assessments as to the various ways it could play out. There was a question on the potential for a partner in a research proposal to be lost to us. EU-based scientists are worrying about how welcome they will be as leaders of research proposals within the EU or with a big partner if there is a risk to their eligibility or if their eligibility criteria remain unknown while negotiations are happening. That could influence many scientific partnering groups that prepare competitive proposals to Europe and have to make judgment calls on how wise it may be to partner with an English institution. We have excellent and successful partnerships with UK-based institutions. The UK Treasury has guaranteed all partnerships in contract at the moment with a letter of comfort so that, if somebody withdraws, the Treasury will make up the funding for EU partnerships. It would be a sad day if all the partnerships with EU groups which have been built up over decades were lost.