Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

In reply to Deputy McHugh's questions, as he indicated, the salmon buy-out scheme is under a different Department and even if I wanted to change the rules to allow people to catch salmon again commercially I would not be able to do that without getting agreement from the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Rabbitte. We are always open to looking at new ways of creating viable businesses for coastal communities but salmon fishing will be difficult. There is nothing to prevent someone from entering the shellfish sector. If he or she wants to apply for a licence, there is a mechanism for doing this. We have put in place a template for shellfish aquaculture licences.

Other Deputies asked questions about aquaculture licences. We are working through the frustrating process of having to undertake an environmental impact assessment of all Natura scheme bays, the bays around the coast designated as special areas of conservation by the European Union. This must be done before we can consider licence applications in these bays. That process is well under way and we will have completed the assessment of four or five bays by the end of the year and will be accepting aquaculture licence applications as soon as possible after that date.

A number of Deputies asked about the collection of data. When the European Commissioner came to Ireland recently, she made a point of outlining how impressed she was by the level of data collection here, the people in the Marine Institute and the accuracy and credibility of its technology. Anyone who reads the Stock Book which assesses fish stocks in various areas will see that our capacity to collect data and make a credible argument based on science, to which the industry and the scientists in the Marine Institute have contributed, is better than that of any other country in the European Union. That is our starting point. If we need to build and improve on this, we should try to do so, but we are starting from a good place. When I entered politics, there was considerable friction between the fishing industry and scientists in the Marine Institute with regard to the facts. We have come a long way since and it has been a positive development.

Deputy Ross spoke about the Sunken Billions report. The title refers to income that will be lost to the fishery sector if we do not implement a maximum sustainable yield approach to stock management. The report outlines the precautionary approach we need to take to ensure we will have viable fish stocks. Otherwise we will lose billions of euro of potential revenue.

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