Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I seek a debate on the seafood industry. This issue is an old hobby horse of mine and I was prompted to raise it again by a statement made by the chief executive of Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Jason Whooley, at a conference in Galway last week. At a time when jobs are being lost, there is considerable potential along our coastline for the promotion of the seafood industry. In my neck of the woods, seafood producers such Shellfish De La Mer in Castletownbere and Bantry Bay Seafoods are developing added-value products for export. Our coastline has been decimated but it can recover through the development of the seafood industry.

Chile, Spain, France and Norway are streets ahead of us in this regard. The plans we developed in the early 1990s to produce 30,000 tonnes of mussels became stuck at 10,000 tonnes. There is too much regulation and scientific mismanagement of some of our seafood areas. The control of AZA toxins in mussels is rightly a major issue because food security is important. The same toxins are found in Canada but are unknown in the United States, Chile and Argentina. It is time we had a debate on this matter with one of the Ministers of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Sargent or Deputy Killeen. The seafood industry can create employment at a time when jobs are haemorrhaging left, right and centre.