Ms Caroline Bocquel:

At the time when we developed our corporate strategy, there was not, as the Deputy said, a strategy for the inshore sector itself. None of the other subsectors had its own strategy, so we referenced that but a lot of the work that would have been carried out through the inshore sector would have been represented really in its own strategy which we were helping it to implement. As we embark on a new strategy process this year, certainly it will be front and centre in our own strategy document because it is very important to ensure that it gets that level of visibility. Within the business of seafood, though, it is important to see the value of the sector. As we look at the fishery landings, lobster, at €13 million, is our number three species. We have crab, our number two species, at €20 million. These are all inshore species so certainly it would feature throughout all the work of BIM. We have been involved heavily with a working group on brown crab, for example. The recommendations are with the Minister for consideration to really try to ensure we are supporting that sector. They are a group whom I meet very regularly and they certainly have a range of challenges, but under the Brexit adjustment reserve we have the opportunity to do a very important survey. We have not historically had a very good picture of the fleet. As was said, we have something like 1,500 active vessels in the fleet but we do not have very much visibility of the fleet, and part of that is because the regulations do not require them to carry vessel monitoring software and, in some cases, they do not have to report their landings below a certain level so it has been hard to get that visibility. However, under the Brexit adjustment reserve, we had the opportunity to take survey and to compensate people for that, so we have a fantastic picture now of the inshore fleet and we will use that over the coming months to develop a strategy with the sector that deals with those very issues the Deputy has spoken of.