Cecilia Keaveney (Fianna Fail)

Given that Ireland is an island, it is not in the interests of marine development and subsequent sectoral employment creation potential to have seven or eight people responsible for the sector. While not taking from those already involved in it, whenever I raise a marine matter with the line Minister, I discover it falls within the remit of various Departments and agencies. I accept that when Deputy Killeen was the Minister of State responsible, he brought together a co-ordinating group to oversee the area.

Ireland still has not maximised its marine economic potential. Coming from Moville, a major whitefish port in County Donegal, and only three miles from the National Fisheries College at Greencastle, I know the fishing industry has been under strain. Many who were involved in the industry in my area have informed me of what they see as job opportunities in other marine activities there. However, I have not received much feedback on these opportunities whenever I have raised them with various Departments and agencies. A breakwater, for example, at Greencastle Harbour was under development. Does the Minister know if Donegal County Council has paid its contribution in respect of its development?

While it is not all doom and gloom and fishermen are now getting a better price for their catches, the numbers in the industry have fallen. A report by the trade magazine Tanker Operator was brought to my attention in which Jan Morten Eskilt, OSM's group chairman, indicated in a presentation in Norway that the shipping sector would face a shortage of 70,000 officers by 2012. This figure had been revised downwards from an earlier prediction of 90,000. He attributed this decline to the current global economic climate. The shipping sector is seeking enough cadets in training programmes to be available when the economic upturn occurs. Ireland has the capacity in its existing training facilities at Cork and Greencastle to fill the gaps in the numbers of training cadets.

In January a seafarers task force was launched by the European Commission, inviting industry leaders to take part in discussions designed to come up with ways of reversing the decline in European seafaring. Ship owners, experts and union representative would also join academics and law-makers in the brainstorming session. Has Ireland become involved in this task force? Is it fighting for a corner of the training market? Which Minister is responsible for this area?

In the next two years 60 million tonnes of newly built shipping will join the world fleet. Most of the tonnage was ordered at the height of the shipping boom and it will be joining the shipping market when freight prices are at break-even levels. There has been an increase in the rate of scrappage, but such was the rush to offload elderly and uneconomical vessels that the price of scrap metal collapsed. Accordingly, some ship owners need a hot lay-up to allow them to bring a boat back into service quickly, while others need a cold lay-up while waiting for metal prices to change again. I come from an area with many deep water berthages and close to the Harland and Wolff shipyard. I have been informed by many that my area could provide hot and cold lay-up facilities for boats currently surplus to requirements, as well as providing training facilities for some of the required 70,000 sea officers. As Senator McCarthy said, every job created at sea generates approximately €7 in the local economy. We are surrounded by water. These are simply two examples of what we could be doing. I would like to think we could be at the forefront of trying to get our cut of this market. There are few islands in Europe. There may be people with coastlines, but few people with islands. We should have a relatively good infrastructure by now because there has been good infrastructure development in the past decade. We should not be knocking on the door gently at this point. We should be rapidly progressing towards the source and potential of those jobs. My difficulty is that when I raise issues about marine tourism, I am informed it is a matter for the Department of Tourism, Culture and Sport. If I approach that Department, I am informed it is a matter for the Department with responsibility of the marine. When I refer to marine jobs, I approach the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation, but I am informed it is not a matter for that Department because it is a marine matter. We need to respect the marine a great deal more than we have done to date. We need a cross-sectoral approach that not only ticks a box, but drives the opportunities. I am a firm believer in the opportunities of the marine, from tourism to merchant and commercial shipping and many other ventures on the sea as well.