Dr. Peter Heffernan:

On seaweed harvesting, I am not aware in real time of any significant legislation in circulation for consultation or pre-statutory instrument. In the normal course, Departments refer to agencies through the interdepartmental mechanisms for opinions on that. There is potential for multitrophic aquaculture which might have finfish, seaweed and shellfish in partnership with one another. The Marine Institute would be a willing partner in the exploration of how that might happen from a research perspective. I am not aware of any application in that regard at the moment. On the issue of offshore fish farm production, the Marine Institute recently provided advice to the Department on scale and that was published in the strategy for aquaculture and the operational programme associated with aquaculture earlier this year. That has been dealt with.