Mr. Bernard Byrne:

One of the key things we need to take away from mackerel is that in any pelagic factory dealing with mackerel, blue whiting and other stocks, mackerel contributes more than 80% of the profits. It is the engine that keeps the industry going. Earlier, Mr. Murphy referred to whitefish stock swaps and the service sector. Without the revenue generated by mackerel, from an employment and business perspective the entire model in this country would collapse on itself. That collapse would be very stark and very quick.

I have not seen any official report reflect that. We are here today as a fisheries committee in our national Parliament building having known for the past 15 days that mackerel will collapse. I have yet to see a report. We need to take things seriously around here. Some 2,500 jobs will be lost within the first six to eight months. Within the first six months, six or seven factories will be lost. The service sector will be devastated within six months. We have not addressed this. Unless there is a state of paralysis which I do not know about and can be explained to me, we should be all over this.