Mr. Michael Mulloy:

I thank the Deputy for the opportunity to respond and thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing us to come in here today. Delay is extraordinarily frustrating. I am from an industry background myself. I was chair of IFA's aquaculture committee for two terms and am extremely aware of the delays. In fact, the company from which I retired has been awaiting an appropriate assessment for six years. I am painfully aware and have suffered first-hand from the problems of which the Deputy speaks. It is interesting how when one is on the other side of the fence, looking at it from the outside, one can see the problems. Basically, our determinations have to be robust enough to sustain a judicial review. We get into a legal countryside that is very complex and very slow. We had a judicial review on a single farm application for which the judgment took over a year to write. It ran to 600 pages because the issues that were raised are highly complex and the skills required to address those deficiencies in the judgment are hard to find and procure. I have the benefit of having been on both sides of the fence and I sympathise with the regulators on the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved. That said, from the industry perspective it is frustrating. We are entering a new round of finfish applications now. In turnover terms finfish are the backbone of the industry. Farmed finfish landings are worth approximately €160 million and it is important that they are fully licensed. As we stand at the moment, under the licensing regime they are all relying on a section 19A(4), which does not give them same benefits and protection as a full licence. Also, as the Deputy rightly pointed out, the public interest is not being safeguarded by the prolonged application of that section 19A(4).