Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

I neglected to refer to a point made by Senator McHugh on safety. I refer to the grant aid allowed for safety equipment on boats and so on. That is administered by Bord Iascaigh Mhara. If there are delays or specific areas of concern and the Senator advises us of them, we will refer the cases to Bord Iascaigh Mhara.

I appreciate Senator McHugh's point about the lack of confidence in the sector as do my civil servants working in this area. The Senator was not criticising the Department when he said there is and has been a lack of confidence in the monitoring of the sector by the Department. I do not make a great secret of the fact that I am not happy with the number of sea-fisheries officers in place to deal with the huge volume of work that must be undertaken in this area. That is why we made a strong case to the Department of Finance last year, which was happily accepted, to allow us to double the number of sea-fisheries officers. That increase in staff is currently taking place and they will move into the sea-fisheries authority. I accept that everybody wants to know the regulations are being applied in an even-handed manner and assure the Senator that is being done.

There is a certain amount of self-serving by some people in the fishing industry. There is much anecdotal talk of what is and is not being done, of sea-fisheries officers discriminating against Irish trawlers and so on as a justification for some of the illegal activities they are carrying on themselves — let us be blunt about that. However, the assurance I want to give this House, as I gave to the other House, is that the Department is absolutely committed to trying to ensure that sea fisheries law will be applied even-handedly as it has been in the past.

Every effort is being made to apply the law even-handedly. The sooner this fact is accepted by some individuals operating in the fisheries industry, the easier it will be for the vast majority of genuine operators in the business. Various fisheries organisations requested a meeting with me and the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, to discuss the future of the fishing industry during the run up to the debate on the Bill in both Houses. At that time, I clearly indicated we would meet to discuss the future of the fishing industry and to try to mend some bridges as soon as the Bill passed through both Houses and into law. I gave this commitment in the other House and as soon as the Bill passes through this House and into law, such a meeting will be arranged to ensure we look to the future, rather than the past, which we have tended to do as a result of our deliberations on the Bill itself.