Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

The inherent difficulties, for example as regards sea lice in salmon, considerably pre-date the present Government and in fact were an issue when the marine element of the Department, including those elements now with the Departments of Communications and Natural Resources and Agriculture, Fisheries and Food were within the same Department. In fact, that debate and all the issues surrounding it long pre-date the present Administration.

I agree strongly with the Deputy that Europe is not the problem. We frequently congratulate ourselves on being enormously compliant Europeans, but as regards the directives in question in this instance, concerning the Natura 2000 sites, we had about 12 to 14 years to implement them and have not done so. Ultimately, a European Court of Justice judgment in December 2007 was successfully prosecuted against Ireland and that is the nub of the difficulty in getting over these issues.

On funding, €4.5 million of the €5 million provided for this year has been allocated and the question of funding for future years is clearly contingent on budgetary considerations.

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