Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 4 November 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs
Aquaculture Innovation and Development: Discussion
2:00 am
David Maxwell (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms Bocquel for her reply. What I am getting there is BIM want to work with the producers, so where is the logjam? Who is it with? It is with the licensing authority. Chair, we need to ask the licensing authority to come in. I would like this group to come back in after a year to see what has moved, whether the backlog has changed and what can we do. If there is such a backlog in licensing, that has to change. When you hear it takes 20 years to get a licence, there is no other business that could sustain that. Is the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine the licensing authority? It is. Maybe the Department is on the work programme but we have to see some of its officials. BIM wants to work with Mr. O'Sullivan and his group, which is good to hear. No matter what, it can be said we could do more and we do not do enough, but if the Department is the hold-up here, we need to get its officials in and put the questions to them.