Mr. John Ward:

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn for his contribution. I find it difficult to disagree with anything he said. Ours was one of the producer organisations, POs, which stated that it supported the decommissioning scheme. We supported the scheme on the basis that we had members within our organisation who have become so disillusioned with what is happening and our fishing industry that they have lost all confidence and they think it is time to get out of it. The analysis that was done at the task force was provided by BIM, which drew up the proposals as to how many vessels needed to be taken out of the fleet. The figures that were produced to us came from both the Department and BIM. We did not put forward the figures for what should be paid for GT. We have no argument that it should be much more than what was agreed at the task force, but it was made very clear to us by the officials from the Department that if we were to go out looking for crazy figures for GT, we would not get a decommissioning scheme. It would not be approved on the levels that were being proposed by the industry. We were between a rock and a hard place and we settled. There are lots of rules that are there that we do not necessarily agree with, as was articulated by my colleague, Mr. Lynch, in particular the idea that if the owner of a vessel is taking money for the tie-up scheme in 2021 and if he takes decommissioning in 2022, he has to pay it back. This is an EU rule as part of another EU scheme, but there is nothing in the TCA compensation fund that says that this rule should apply for decommissioning. However, our Department is insisting that it should be the rule. I will confirm that we in the POs always work much more closely with our colleagues in the other POs than many people feel is the case. As Mr. Ward said, we respect our individual positions on various issues but we do our damnedest to do the best we can for our members.