Tom Shehan (Fine Gael)

In the interests of brevity I will keep my contribution to questions. Will the Minister examine harbour dues because I believe anomalies exist throughout the country as anything between €15 and €300 is charged per night by various harbour masters? How many applications have been made for the renewal of aquaculture licenses and for new licences? The Minister cannot be blamed with regard to the operational programme for fisheries, which was to run from 2007 to 2013 but has not yet been put in place, as it is now 2011 and he has been in office for only a couple of months. The blame for this must lie with the previous Administration.

I agree with the Minister that fishermen are the best people to preserve fish stocks because they do not want to make a killing one year but have no income the next. Does the Government hold quota kilowatts and tonnage? My understanding of the discussions on the Common Fisheries Policy is that the EU wants to hand back decision-making to national governments to tailor local conditions. Would this enable the Government to allocate tonnage and kilowatts in its jurisdiction?

A member of the Sneem Fishermen's Co-op is in the Visitors Gallery. The Minister received communication on an issue concerning this group and I ask him to re-examine it. These men borrowed €340,000 on the promise of a grant of €109,000 from BIM and the previous Administration which they never received. I understand from the Minister's reply it cannot be dealt with retrospectively but in the interests of good will, fairness and natural justice something should be done for them.