Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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On the latter point, I appreciate Deputy Martin Kenny may not have been able to attend the meeting some weeks ago when we had a conversation about this. We have made substantial progress on clearing the backlog on the shellfish licences. We are initiating communication on the finfish applications. Only last week, I attended a BIM event for seafood awards and met a number of the beneficiaries of the accelerated licence approval process who were quite thankful for the endeavours of the Department and the officials in that section. The finfish will be more difficult but we are beginning the process, and we have allocated additional staff for that purpose.

On Deputy Pringle's question on the underspend in BIM, these are substantially demand-led grant schemes. The schemes will continue. It is a provision that we made in 2019 that has not been drawn down. The grant schemes are funded substantially under the European Maritime Fisheries Fund, which is €239 million, of which €93 million is Exchequer funding and the balance is EU funding. Those schemes will continue to be available in 2019.