Mr. Cathal Groonell:

They are entirely focused on what is good for the boat. What is good for the boat is that they get their quota, they take it and they land it wherever the best price is available, be it in Norway or Shetland or wherever. There is no tie-in to getting value for the State in this whole process. That is lacking. For many years the boats were not as big as they are now, we had a fair enough fleet in Rossaveal and it all worked reasonably well. There has been a dramatic change, however, in the last five years in particular. There is a huge change in the way the business has gone. We would consider ourselves to be a small operation in the whole thing, but as has been said there smaller companies in Killybegs who are also feeling the very cold wind of what is happening now. It is time for the Department to take another look at the way it makes the decisions and to see if four or five companies owning and processing the whole lot is a good result. This is the question. In our opinion the State is a lot better off with 12 factories around the coast where employment can be created. Employment such as we give in Rossaveal is so important. Údarás na Gaeltachta may not readily admit it but it is very hard to get any company to move west of Spidall. People want to be in Galway. Barna is fine but Spidall is about the limit. Coming further west is just hard. We are there and people are very happy working where we are. Businesses such as lorry drivers and engineering companies are all getting a turn out. It is a very important part of their job and it is important that this business remains in place. As far as the organisations are concerned we would not have great support from the fishing organisations for our proposal.

We did submit this proposal to the Minister and the Department and we got an acknowledgement. We looked for a meeting but we got no reply. This is not what we do. We are very happy with this opportunity to make our case here.