Dr. Ciaran Kelly:

Deputy Gallagher referred to the herring surveys, for example, which we have currently in the Celtic Sea. We detect and can calculate a sprat biomass from that, but the issue here is not what you see on a survey but what the stock size is. The stock here, for sprat, is currently area VI, which is that area west of Scotland, all the way up to the Butt of Lewis and west of the western isles, and down to the north coast of Donegal, all the way around Ireland and up into the Irish Sea, and down into the Celtic Sea. There is not currently a single survey covering sprat biomass across that area, and if you were to move to a biomass-based estimate for managing the stock and giving a catch advice, you would need to have that put together. It can be done, because there are different surveys across that area, but what we would do, first of all, is find out the area of distribution of the stock. We are not completely naive on this. We have been for the past number of years gathering samples of sprat caught across all of that area of distribution. It is delayed currently, but we were expecting to have the genetic results from that by the end of the summer, in August. It has now been delayed. It is likely to be October, at this stage, before we get that. When that information is on the table, we should be able to say if, for example, the sprat west of Scotland are the same stock as the sprat in the Celtic Sea. If they are, we would need a survey across that entire area in order to be able to calculate the stock biomass. If they are not, we can then use the surveys that we have currently to estimate a biomass that would be relevant for the stocks. That work will have to be done through ICES because assessments are done in an international context, given that fisheries are international. Therefore, the ICES programme of work is currently putting up benchmarks for 2026. We cannot benchmark for sprat in 2026, but we may be able to do it in 2027 when that genetic information comes through. That is the timescale within which science works. We are better off getting the science right here before we try to base an advice on it, and that is the way we would always work in the institute.