Mr. Paschal Hayes:

On the pier-side weighing device, we have got to distinguish between the 19 landings out of 20 and the one landing out of 20. The obligation is to control and supervise one landing out of 20 to enable the other 19 to be brought to the factories and weighed or weighed on the pier-side weighing device, which is owned by the industry. Therefore, there is an option to weigh the 19 out of 20 in the factories or on the pier-side weighing device.

On the one in 20 whose weighing we need to supervise, there are currently two options open to a master landing in Killybegs. One is to pump the fish from the vessel into the pier-side weighing machine and then place them in a tanker that has been pre-filled with water and weighed on the weighbridge. Following the placement of the fish in the tanker, the tanker is brought back to the weighbridge and weighed again. One weight is subtracted from the other and the result is the weight of the fish in the tanker. The second option open to the master or operator is to discharge into an empty tanker that is the pre-weighed. The fish are pumped into it with the water they were originally in. It is up to the operator to take off as much water as deemed possible without interfering with the quality of the fish. The weight is then determined on the weighbridge, and that is recorded as the official weight of the fish.