Mr. Gerard Kelly:

The case was taken in respect of access to fish in Irish territorial waters within the 12-mile limit apart from the area that was covered under the London Fisheries Convention. It was decided that those boats had no legal access to the area within that limit. Deputy McConalogue asked about that judgment.

We were asked about our experience. As time passed and some people were getting away with using UK boats, the situation snowballed. Once the Department started defending its position in court, more people took comfort from that. Some sold Irish boats, got good money for fishing licences and bought and started using UK licences. That describes some of the abuse.

Some species do not have quotas attaching to them. Fishermen were able to buy extra boats, which placed pressure on locals. If the fishery went bad, people knew that they had a great market into which to sell their UK boats. There are approximately 5,000 boats as well as a reasonable market in the UK whereas the Irish fisherman would be stuck in Ireland with his boat.

We have brought with us a graph showing mussel production in Ireland. It collapsed to-----