Mr. Eamon Dixon:

It is a good question. If the Government were to look at this, it would make a colossal difference to us. It would keep the people in our communities. It would keep a GAA team in a town. If we keep losing the young people, how will we replace them? It is like anything, including politics, you have to have young people coming through. We have families in rural Ireland but the problem is we are losing them because the opportunities are not there.

To take my own boat, for instance, I have two young lads. One is in college and the other is not. It is very difficult for me to say to him to come fishing with me and if he holds on, he will be able to make a living out of it in the future. As it stands, he would not be able to do that. The opportunity is there, if we were given access to the quota, but at the moment we do not have it.

Senator O'Donovan made a serious and important point. If we were to get a little more and we could get back some pelagic quotas that we had before, particularly for mackerel and herring, it would give us the opportunity to do that and we would be able to hand our boats on to others knowing they would be able to make a living out of them. That is all you can ask for in any way of life. To be able to make a living in the community that you live in is so important to everybody.