Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. The two key questions here are on pollock and north-west herring. I will bring in Dr. Kelly from the Marine Institute in a moment on the pollock question because it is a good opportunity to get an insight into the scientific advice around it and its different aspects. I will also bring in Ms O’Sullivan on the north-west herring aspect.

First, on the pollock piece, there was no target in fishery last year and there is no target in fishery advised in the ICES advice this year. This is a stock which goes right around. It is not that it is just around the west coast of Donegal; it goes right around the Irish coast and the Celtic Sea. It is a also shared stock with the UK.

Hook and line would be a targeted fishery. There is the challenge then in catching other quotas of fish similar to, say, cod where there is no quota for it. If one did not give one small bycatch there, those stocks would also be choked. That is the challenge there. I know it is a challenge for the inshore sector and I would very much like to see it reopened. It would be great to see it reopened but we must take the scientific advice on it on board.

I will ask Ms O'Sullivan to give an overview of the north-west herring. I know there are different views among fishers on it. We set up a North-West Herring Advisory Committee and I see that it issued comments in the past number of days taking a different view from that of the National Inshore Fishermen Association, NIFA, and the National Inshore Fisheries Forum, NIFF. It was positive that last year was the first year we had a north-west herring fishery in a good few years. It had only been a scientific fishery up to that. That is along with the spurdog fishery being reopened. It was one of the positives in seeing stocks recover. Obviously, there are contested views as to the share and different views among fishers as to how the fishery is managed. We have to take as fair an approach as possible in regard to the approach being taken. I will ask Ms O'Sullivan to speak further on that. Perhaps Dr. Kelly might give an overview of the key considerations with regard to the pollock issue.