Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their presentation. I have read through the review of the aquaculture licence process and it seems to be a very good document. To someone who is not an expert in the field, the recommendations in it are common sense. They set out a pathway forward to try to resolve this issue. I was shocked To learn the length of time it takes for a person to get a licence. One would have qualified as a doctor by the time one would have got a licence to set up in the aquaculture industry. It is mind-boggling how it can take so long. That being said, this document sets out recommendations to change that and to move it forward.

I refer to the recommendation - I think recommendation No. 10 - on the need to put in place an implementation plan to implement this report. Have we got that implementation plan? Does it set out a timescale as to when all the recommendations in this report will be in place?

I am particularly interested in the timescale for the application for the licences. There should be a time limit. One of the recommendations - I think it is recommendation No. 8.1 - is that a six month time limit be set in which to determine a licence and it should apply to all new licence applications submitted by 1 January 2018. Is that in place yet? When people apply for a licence, do they get a timescale as to when it will be dealt with so that they know what they are dealing with?

The Minister has committed, and it was mentioned in the presentation, that 300 licences will be dealt with and issued this year. How long have those licences been there? Do they going back six years or more? How long have these people been waiting to get licences?

Senator Mac Lochlainn mentioned modern practices. There have been huge changes and scientific advances within the whole industry. Does the licensing process take all that on board? Does it recognise the advances that have happened in the whole aquaculture sector and how these changes will impact on the sector?

If it is the case that 600 licences have not been dealt with and we are going to deal with 300 of them in one year, one would have to ask how has it taken so long for this to be done? Nobody is casting any aspersions on anyone's competency or anything else, but it seems mind-boggling to me or to any independent person. If we can deal with 300 licences now and set a target for that, why in the name of God were these people left in limbo for years? These people and the public deserve a clear explanation. I think that is very obvious.

I refer to the future and what we can do from now on. Clearly, there is huge potential in this industry. There are also people who have concerns and they are entitled to have them. Nobody wants to see the foreshore or anywhere else polluted or any issues in that regard. The people who have concerns must have the opportunity to make them known and to object or whatever they wish to do. At the moment if somebody has a licence for an oyster bed in a specific place but the oysters are failing as a result of disease, to solve that problem the person just needs to move it up the bay a little bit. However, if they do that, they will be in breach of the licence. There is no flexibility at all in regard to what people can do.

In other words, they either have to breach their licence, which gets them into a lot of trouble with the Department, or sit back and watch their business go down the Swanny. In any situation, and we discuss issues relating to agriculture all the time as well as farmers in trouble and the problems they have, there is always some solution, there is a bit of flexibility and there are people who are prepared to do something to resolve the issue. However, from what we hear from the people in the aquaculture industry, the Department is absolutely Stalinist in its approach in that one does it its way or else. We need to be assured that these recommendations will be implemented in full, that there will a be change in attitude, that people will find there is some flexibility when they are being dealt with and that they are dealt with in an appropriate manner in the circumstances in which they find themselves.