Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome our witnesses. I must read a note on parliamentary privilege. Witnesses giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to the committee. This means a witness has a full defence in any defamation action for anything said at a committee meeting. However, witnesses are expected not to abuse this privilege and may be directed to cease giving evidence on an issue at the Chair's direction. Witnesses should follow the direction of the Chair in this regard. They are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that, as is reasonable, no adverse commentary should be made against an identifiable third person or entity. Witnesses who are to give evidence from a location outside the parliamentary precincts, which does not apply in this particular case, are asked to note that they may not benefit from the same level of immunity from legal proceedings as a witness giving evidence from within the parliamentary precincts and may consider it appropriate to take legal advice on this matter.

Privilege against defamation does not apply to publication by witnesses outside of the proceedings held by the committee of any matters arising from the proceedings.

With that said and understood, I welcome our witnesses: the chair designate of the board of the Marine Institute, Mr. Martin Sisk, and the CEO of the Marine Institute, Dr. Rick Officer. They are both welcome. The opening statement has been forwarded to all members. Rather than reading the statement, I ask witnesses to take two minutes to give a summary and then we will go to questions and answers.

Mr. Martin Sisk:

I am pleased to appear before the committee. As members will see from my opening statement, I have substantial experience, both regulatory and otherwise, in various roles I have played, such as the Registry of Friendly Societies where, among other things, I had agricultural co-operatives and fisheries co-operatives as part of my responsibility. I have chaired a number of significant organisations, such as VHI Healthcare as I have explained in detail in the opening statement. I have also chaired the Irish Auditing and Accounting Supervisory Authority for eight years as the regulator of the auditing and accounting profession. In 2024, I served as interim chairperson of the State Examinations Commission, which, as members are aware, is a complex process involving 140,000 students. I am glad to say we started and finished and got the results out well ahead of time. I serve as a board member of Drogheda Port Company. Consequently, I have a good practical understanding of the issues involved in running a commercial port.

I do not need to read out the Marine Institute Act 1991, but the Marine Institute has a very important range of functions, both scientific and developmental, and in the forum of creating employment for the fisheries and maritime sector. I am aware that the institute is held in high regard by the industry and I intend that that positive position should continue and be enhanced.

Separately, the institute provides extensive advice and services to five Departments and their relevant Ministers, which I am aware is much valued by those Departments. The institute has ten operational sites around the country and I intend visiting all those sites in the coming months to get a full, on the ground, understanding of the organisation.

Before I open for questions, for the benefit of the members of the committee, I will mention those sites. The Marine Institute headquarters is in Rinville, in Oranmore. The long-term ecological research facility is in Furnace, Newport, County Mayo. The Irish Maritime Development Office is on Hatch Street, Dublin. The technical support base is in Parkmore, Galway. The heavy equipment store is on the Galway docks. Also and very importantly, we have fishery sampling staff located in the following fisheries harbours: Greencastle and Killybegs in Donegal; Rossaveel in Galway; Castletownbere in Cork; and Dunmore East in Waterford, the Cathaoirleach's territory. I intend to visit all those sites in the coming months. I would welcome the opportunity for Deputies and Senators who are from those constituencies to come and meet me and I am happy to arrange that at that time.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Sisk. Given the time constraints, we will have four minutes for Deputy Mac Lochlainn. I ask him to be very brief. That has to include responses as well as the questions.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I congratulate Mr. Sisk on his new role. I wish him every success. I submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister recently. I am advised that there are 295 aquaculture license applications awaiting an appropriate assessment. It seems to take an inordinate amount of time. There are two problems. If we are looking to develop the aquaculture industry and meet the objectives of BIM and so on, a timeframe is needed. Also, people can legitimately object, and they need to have a timeframe for when a decision will be made. How long does it take to complete an appropriate assessment? How many appropriate assessments can the Marine Institute complete in a year? Is there a dual-track system for completing appropriate assessments for finfish and shellfish, for example?

The other point is that, if awaiting a decision, no grant assistance can be availed of. That leaves a person in no man's land. Is it the case that we would need to allocate the Marine Institute more resources? Has it enough people to carry out these roles? I want to get a sense of that.

I am going to cite a statistic. I am from the Inishowen Peninsula in Donegal, which has a population of about 40,000. The Faroe Islands have a population of about 55,000. The Faroe Islands have a bigger aquaculture industry than all of Ireland. One way or the other, a decision has to be made. Whether the Marine Institute says "Yay" or "Nay", I do not take any position on that. That is in the hands of more capable people than me. However, we need to make a timely decision based on resources available. Can I get a sense of where all that is at?

Mr. Martin Sisk:

As the Deputy will appreciate, I have not even met the board of the Marine Institute yet because of the procedures that have to be followed. I wish to assure the Deputy that this matter will receive considerable attention from me once I get my feet under the table. However, I will defer to Dr. Rick Officer, who possibly might add some more specialised knowledge on this subject at this point in time.

Dr. Rick Officer:

There are many paths to dissecting the Deputy's question. In regard to the number of appropriate assessment applications that are before the institute, the apparent number of site applications is elevated because these assessments are actually done, particularly for shellfish, on a bay-wide basis rather than on a site-specific basis. For example, in the current bay-wide collective assessment of shellfish applications in Castlemaine, there are 87 sites that we currently recognise within that one application. Hence the elevated number. When we consider that and do our assessments on a bay-wide basis, we are down to about 61 priorities. These priorities are negotiated with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine's aquaculture and foreshore management division. We operate on a priority assigned by that Department and directed to the institute.

The other element of the question is around the time taken to complete an appropriate assessment. To be aware, five reports are currently required in reviewing an aquaculture license. The first element is the appropriate assessment. The time taken to do that will vary on the complexity. For intensive finfish aquaculture, it will take longer. Generally, the first element of the screening will screen in for full appropriate assessment. We also-----

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Dr. Officer, but I must call Deputy Whitmore.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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In regard to the question on resources, does Dr. Officer feel that the Marine Institute could do with additional resources such as staffing to try to speed up the process?

Dr. Rick Officer:

Of course, and that is something we are discussing with the Department. We are looking to utilise some European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, EMFA, funding to secure some additional resources for that. That will be part of our Estimates for this year for provision in 2026.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach.

Mr. Martin Sisk:

I assure the Deputy that this will receive attention from my end of things as well.

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Sisk.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I welcome the witnesses and congratulate Mr. Sisk. He may know I worked for the Marine Institute 25 years ago. I have many great memories from working there at that time. I worked there when it was in Dublin, before it moved over to Galway. One of the issues, and this feeds into the previous comment, was certainly present there at that time. It was not just the staffing levels but also the type of staffing contract that was there.

There were very few full-time, permanent contracts. They tended to be two-year or three-year contracts and it was based on whatever European funding was available at the time. There was no certainty for staff. It was difficult to get mortgages or anything like that to put down roots and know where they would be in a number of years. Has that improved? When the Marine Institute was set up, it was a fisheries-based organisation but its remit has broadened to general research and ecosystem services. Has there been an equivalent increase in the number of full-time staff available to the institute? Is that sort of contract still an issue?

Mr. Martin Sisk:

Before I answer, I would like to congratulate a school in the Deputy's constituency, Brittas Bay National School, which recently won the explorer's ocean award for 2025. The Deputy was at the ceremony. It is a great achievement. There are 265 staff in the institute at this point in time, of whom 170 are permanent. The rest are on contracts. I am aware this issue is under a serious professional review. I will defer to Dr. Officer to comment further. It is an issue I will look at very carefully.

Dr. Rick Officer:

May I answer further?

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.

Dr. Rick Officer:

It remains an issue. Part of the issue is that the Marine Institute and its mandate under the Act are quite broad. We are under the aegis of a parent Department, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. It provides approximately 70% of the resources we extend. The remainder come from European grants and service level arrangements with other Government Departments and agencies. It remains a big issue that those services and some of the services we provide for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are treated as ephemeral contracts because the money is ephemeral. In areas where we have enduring work and in some areas emerging as particular priorities for the institute, particularly around spatial planning, where we try to balance the interests of the existing sectors, fisheries and aquaculture with the emerging sectors in renewable energy and tourism, that work is not ephemeral; it will be enduring. I am determined to work in concert with the Departments and agencies currently supporting that work through ephemeral arrangements to transition them to longer-term performance and delivery arrangements agreeable to our parent Department.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I welcome that. The remit has changed and so has the importance of particular areas. Resourcing needs to reflect that. I do not know of any other State agency providing such a fundamental service where there would be that extent of short-term or ephemeral contracts. I acknowledge Brittas Bay National school. They did an incredible job on the project. I congratulate the institute - those outreach programmes are so important. It is great to see young people have an opportunity to engage in marine science in a meaningful way and for it to be acknowledged at a national level. I also congratulate the institute on the bursary programme. That was how I got into the Marine Institute. It is still going strong. I believe it is now named after Anne Cullen, with whom I worked at the time. I would love to see an expansion of that and the outreach programmes because they are important.

While the witness mentioned all the points around the country where the Marine Institute has outreach centres, there is a notable absence on the east coast. At one stage it was out in Abbotstown. I would love to see some level of marine research or outreach post on the east coast. It is not just from a fisheries perspective, there is also education, in which the institute also plays an important role.

Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I congratulate Mr. Sisk on his post and look forward to welcoming him to Donegal whenever he gets up there. I will be only too glad to go about with him. The Marine Institute was set up for fishing a way back. As I see it now, its whole role will be changed with renewable energy. Where do the witnesses see surveys for fish and renewable energy going? Can they go hand in hand? Will the Marine Institute concentrate just on fish or will it do surveys for renewable energy?

Mr. Martin Sisk:

I will defer to Dr. Officer. I thank the Senator. A DMAP process is taking place for the purpose of offshore renewable energy. That is happening on the southern coast at this point in time and will happen gradually around the country. That will not call into question the other work the institute does.

Dr. Rick Officer:

The Senator's question presupposes that the institute is acting on the behalf of a particular sectoral interest. I do not see the purpose of the institute in that way at all. Our role is simply to provide the evidence base that supports good decision-making for marine and maritime affairs, including fisheries and aquaculture and new things emerging around marine spatial planning. The first cab on the rank here seems to be offshore renewable energy. While we will apply particular survey techniques for a fisheries survey, which is sampling the catch, and we will apply geophysical survey techniques for offshore renewable energy, their purpose is all to inform the good location and coexistence of these different sectors. It is to enable a reasonable, reasoned decision-making to occur. It is important the institute is independent of a sectoral interest. We simply offer robust, well-collected science to enable the decision-makers to reach those decisions. I do not see it as being either-or; it is in concert.

Pat Gallagher (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I congratulate the chairman on his appointment and wish him well in his term of office. I go back far enough to the establishment of the Marine Institute; I happened to be there at that time when it had a small office in Dublin before it moved to Galway. I have always believed there is a tremendous opportunity for fish farming off our coast. We are not taking full advantage of it. As Deputy Mac Lochlainn pointed out, the Faroe Islands are well advanced. The problem here is that it straddles too many agencies. I would like to think there would be a one-stop-shop to deal with applications from A to Z. Do the witnesses have views on how it could be more streamlined and expedited? There are great opportunities and we would not be subject to the dreadful words "tax" and "quotas". The institute carries out research and advises the Government prior to the fisheries negotiations in December each year. Do the witnesses feed into ICES as well and provide it with information about the stocks of fish in Ireland? There is some confusion when it comes to pollock. We are told we should not fish it and on the other hand, fishermen tell us there is an abundance of pollock in area 6A. Will the witnesses respond briefly on those matters? All of us would look forward to a visit to the headquarters where we can meet the chief executive, chairman and the staff there to educate us more fully on the involvement the Marine Institute has in the sector.

Mr. Martin Sisk:

Deputy Gallagher was previously the Minister for the marine so he has a special knowledge of this area. Dr. Officer has already had a conversation with the Cathaoirleach about the committee coming down to Galway for a full-day session.

As soon as is feasible, I assume some time in the autumn, I invite the committee to come to the Marine Institute in Galway. We will give the members a full and extensive presentation and they will get to meet all the staff. I very much look forward to the committee taking this opportunity. With regard to the other issues mentioned, I am totally open to looking at them and Dr. Officer could probably add some valuable comments on them.

Dr. Rick Officer:

I will contain my comments to the first couple of parts of the question. With regard to the design of the aquaculture licensing system, I agree that it is very complex. We are bouncing things in and out of the foreshore management division in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There are elements of the process that involve statutory consultation, and we must await this being done before we can proceed with the five stage elements and reporting that we are required to contribute. The design of the system is a matter for the Department. Our role is to implement it. Of course, we will be supportive of efficiency in the design and operation of the system.

With regard to ICES, we are very strong contributors to the system. The institute enjoys enormous soft influence in ICES. The chair of the advisory committee in ICES is a Marine Institute staff member on secondment. The chair of the ICES scientific committee is a Marine Institute staff member who has left to chair the group. We have very strong engagement with ICES and the formulation of European Union advice on fish stocks.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I would like to pose a few questions myself. I congratulate Mr. Sisk on his appointment. Now that this meeting has happened, he can drop the designate from the title and take on full duties as chairperson. I represent County Waterford, an area that is primed and ready in many respects for the development of offshore renewables. However, there is some concern locally about the impact this will have on marine wildlife. I want to get a sense of what work the Marine Institute has done on the potential impacts on the marine environment, and particularly on marine biodiversity, of placing fixed wind turbines in offshore locations.

My next question is on the issue Deputy Whitmore raised earlier regarding contracts. A figure was given that approximately 100 people are on fixed-term contracts. Is there a plan in place? We have been told there is engagement but is there a plan in place to regularise some of these? They are people working in a public institute paid for by the public purse. No more than school caretakers and secretaries who are members of Fórsa and who are engaging in industrial action, they should be entitled to the same terms and conditions of employment as their colleagues receive.

Mr. Martin Sisk:

I thank the Cathaoirleach. I will touch briefly on this and then hand over to Dr. Officer. I appreciate the Cathaoirleach's background and his extensive inshore fisheries experience. I understand his concerns regarding the DMAP process. I will defer to Dr. Officer to add to this.

Dr. Rick Officer:

Our support for the location of offshore wind farms has been to offer up our advice. This is a request from what is now the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment for advice on the location of fishing activities. We have extensive records of where people fish and what time they fish. The approach is to try to avoid negative interactions, minimise those interactions and mitigate them if there is overlap. This has helped with the south coast designated maritime area plan that went through extensive public consultation and was then enacted without judicial review, which is quite an extraordinary outcome. This was because we were able to avoid as much as possible negative interaction overlaying the DMAP.

There was also a question on cumulative impacts. One of the issues we have is that in Ireland we have only one offshore wind farm. It has been there for a long time in the Irish Sea. We have to borrow evidence from other jurisdictions on the cumulative impacts. This is where our collaboration with the likes of ICES is to our benefit. We are contributing to the working groups established in these international fora, which study more broadly the habitat impacts and species impacts of offshore renewable energy development. We will have to borrow this knowledge when we provide advice on planning decisions here.

With regard to fixed-term contracts, we have a process that has commenced and is ongoing with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine, whereby we have been converting staff on long-term contracts, in fishery sampling in particular, to contracts of indefinite duration. Of course, the big concern of the Department is the nature of the funding for this, which needs to be secure and long term. Where we have been able to establish this, we have made these transitions.

With regard to other areas of work we are doing for other Departments, I am very keen that if this work is enduring then it needs to be treated as enduring in the contractual arrangements for our staff. This is an ongoing conversation I am having with the Department of Climate, Energy and Environment and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to try to achieve this transition.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Sisk and Dr. Officer for their responses.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I am delighted with the invitation to Galway. When we are there, it would be worthwhile to have a presentation on the stock book and the amount of work that goes into the ICES modelling. Particularly in advance of the quota discussions, it would be good for us to know where all the information comes from, how it is fed into the models and how it spits back the quotas at us. If it were possible, it would be very useful.

Mr. Martin Sisk:

I want to add a comment linked to what Deputy Whitmore said earlier. I mentioned Brittas Bay National School winning the Explorers Ocean Champion Award. An important point to make is that having these processes, and assisting and promoting them, it is how we get marine scientists and marine biologists. I know from Dr. Officer and others that they do not grow on trees. There are not too many of them around and we badly need more of them. Anything we can do to encourage the prospect of getting more young people interested in being marine scientists we should do. This is particularly in light of the fact that the marine has a much higher status in Oireachtas committees than it did previously. It is being made very clear by the Government, and by the Taoiseach recently in Nice, that this is a much more important area for the future. It is very important to put this on the record.

Conor McGuinness (Waterford, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Sisk and Dr. Officer for being with us today. I wish Mr. Sisk the very best of luck as he takes up the role. No doubt he will be here again and we will have a longer and more in-depth discussion. We will definitely take him up on the kind invitation to visit the Marine Institute in Galway. Deputy Whitmore's point is good one. We have set ourselves the task of looking ahead to the budget negotiations in December and doing work between now and then. This would give us a very good grounding. We will speak about that. As there are no further matters for discussion at today's meeting, it will stand adjourned.