Mr. Séamus Bonner:

I thank the Deputy. Just as background for the committee, a producer organisation is an organisation officially recognised by the EU. The responsibility is to deliver the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy. In 2018, we started the process of recognition arising from one of the recommendations in the Oireachtas report. We were refused on the first attempt but we achieved recognition in 2021. As part of the process of recognition, we had to do a lot of work. There was a huge amount of work in organising members, collecting information and working through the application process, which we did. The issue with the funding relates to pre-financing in particular. The longer established producer organisations got funding to help them start off. We have been told since 2021, when we were recognised, that pre-financing is not available, even though the facility was there in the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, when we applied for recognition. We have been told that the Department of public expenditure is not allowing the pre-financing aspect of it. This means we have to cash-flow a large amount of money. The way it works is we have to spend the money and claim it back 18 months later. For a small organisation based on the offshore islands, that is not practical. Deputy Mac Lochlainn mentioned the other newly recognised producer organisation. It is in the same boat, as it were.

Part of the application process is putting together a production and marketing plan for activities to help members get better prices for their catches, marketing, collecting information and different things like that. That plan has been approved but the fact that we cannot get the pre-financing has really slowed us down. We are completely reliant on our members' fees and voluntary effort by the committee and membership. We cannot get supports for overheads or meeting attendance. This puts our members at a big disadvantage because there have been hundreds of meetings since we were recognised, which we believe we should have been at because decisions are being made at them that affect fisheries on the ground.