Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

To answer Senator Mullins, I have a figure in my head but I do not want to give him the wrong information. However, I can tell him that at present, seafood produce sold out of Ireland is worth approximately €700 million and we want to increase this to more than €1 billion by 2020. This is a very modest target and we will be significantly above it if we do what I hope to do with regard to aquaculture and foreign landings.

As we see stocks improve and recover it is hoped the allocation of total allowable catches to our fishing fleet will also increase. If one adds up the processing and aquaculture sectors and the fishing industry as we understand it at present, which is the on-sea industry, we can create thousands of jobs. It is important not to oversell this, but we are discussing coastal areas and thousands of jobs in coastal communities would be hugely valuable. The Killybegs jobs initiative project is part of this. This was not my initiative.

I was approached by a number of business people and representatives of the KFO, the county manager, Letterkenny IT and BIM who said they could do something to create a significant number of jobs in Killybegs and add to the town being a driver for the Donegal region. They asked for policy support and not money for a number of initiatives and some of them are under way. They have had follow up meetings since then.

Senator O'Domhnaill referred to individual transferable quotas, ITQs, but my views in this regard are well known. I am sure the Commissioner sees me as a problem child in this regard but I am not reassured by what I have been told and I am concerned at any new system that would require countries to facilitate the transfer of quotas between boats. There is anecdotal evidence to suggest that people have been waving cheque books in Castletownbere and fishing ports on the Bay of Biscay seeking to buy quota to get ahead of the policy. That is worrying and it is not the direction we should take in the CFP.

I agree with greater regionalisation. The proposals on regionalisation do not meet the expectations that followed the Green Paper published a number of months ago. There are also a number of problems with the approach to regionalisation adopted in the draft report. For example, if we manage fish stocks in the western waters, who enforces the rules if the Commission does not? Regionalisation raises practical problems on which we need more comprehensive answers. With regard to decision-making on stock management and recovery plans, more regionalisation is needed in terms of the input for the management of the stocks in Irish waters.

With regard to mackerel fishing, I rarely deliberately target countries outside the EU for criticism and it should not be done lightly but the attitude that Iceland and the Faroe Islands are taking to targeting mackerel stocks is disgraceful. The EU has worked hard over the past ten years to build up this hugely valuable stock. It is the most important stock for the domestic fishing sector. Mackerel fishing is worth €3 billion to the Union. The stock has increased and it has been one of the success stories of stock management.

It has increased to such an extent that the feeding grounds of mackerel have expanded into Faroese and Icelandic waters and the response from the Faroe Islands and Iceland has been to try to fish as much of it as they can in as short a period of time as they can because it is so valuable. A tonne of mackerel is worth between €1,200 and €1,300 whereas most white fish cost €300 a tonne. Mackerel is caught in massive volumes by our fishermen and those of other states. Over the past few days, a Peruvian registered vessel, the Lafayette, which has the largest processing capacity in the world, entered Faroese waters. There is so much mackerel being caught in these waters that they cannot process it. They have had to bring in floating processing factories such as the Lafayette, to catch as much as they can before this madness is stopped.

All the international scientific study of mackerel stock suggests not more than 600,000 tonnes of the fish should be caught this year but more than 1 million tonnes will be caught. The Faroe Islands previously had an agreement with the EU and Norway - Norway is the good guy here working with the Union - under which approximately two thirds of the quota was transferred to the Union and less than one third to Norway with 5% retained by the islands. The Faroe Islands and Iceland have both applied to themselves a tonnage of 150,000 each in mackerel out of a supposed catch of 600,000. In other words, they propose to give half the catch to themselves. That is an act of hugely irresponsible stock management and it will butcher a valuable resource from which everybody should gain. The implications for Ireland are massive because, as a result of what is happening, when I visit Brussels in December to renegotiate next year's mackerel quota for our fleet, we are likely to experience a significant reduction because of what is happening in Faroese and Icelandic waters when it should increase as the stock expands.

What is happening is unacceptable and the Union has tried diplomacy for 18 months to resolve this issue but that has not worked. Iceland and the Faroe Islands are ignoring the entreaties. There was an attempt to reach a deal a number of months ago but people walked away from the table. I proposed at last month's Council that the Union impose trade sanctions on Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Initially this would involve a ban on all imports of mackerel products. If nothing happened as a result of that, we would ban the importation of all pelagic species, including fish meal, into the Union and we would scale it up if there was still no response after that. I secured support from the vast majority of members around the Council table and from the Commissioner who said that by October she will have proposals to introduce sanctions. We are making progress but, unfortunately, where the Union is concerned, the wheels move slowly and, in the meantime, our stock is being damaged. We are taking the issue seriously. Ireland has only so much muscle but I have led the debate on this at EU level and I have been as proactive and aggressive as I can because that is required.

In response to Senator Cummins, because of the good news story that is mackerel, we hope to have an increased quota for this year, which will be allocated in the autumn. The decision I had was whether I should reopen the allocation of the stock between the pelagic fleet and the polyvalent fleet, which is a contentious issue. That is something on which I must make a decision. I am slow to take on too many reviews at the same time, particularly when we do not know the potential mackerel quota reduction in December. We could go through a difficult process that splits the fishing industry to allocate a 10% increase in mackerel quota this year and then end up with a 10% reduction in December and find that the process was undertaken for nothing. I am cautious about doing that because it is contentious.

Hopefully, there will be a decision on boarfish within the next ten days. We are trying to ensure people who have a track record of catching boarfish and who have helped to develop this aspect of the industry and the science relating to what I hope will be a valuable stock in the years ahead will get preferential treatment but that a decent quota will be available for boats that want to experiment with this stock to ascertain whether it would be viable for them. This is the first year we will have quota for boarfish and we will have 22,000 tonnes. We are trying to get the balance right but people will always disagree.

Celtic Sea herring is also a good news story. We are likely to secure an increase in quota and we do not face the same time constraint as we do on boarfish and mackerel. Early autumn will be decision-making time on herring.

The issue of moving from criminal sanctions to administrative sanctions is addressed in the programme of Government. A former Deputy and party colleague, Jim O'Keeffe, drafted legislation to do that when he was in opposition.

Advice has been received from the Attorney General's office but introducing such legislation is not as easy as we hoped. It is still a commitment in the programme for Government and were are exploring legal ways of overcoming these difficulties. It will not happen as quickly as we would have liked, however. We will work with the Attorney General's office to make some progress on it.

There are 23 very large vessels in the pelagic fleet, most of which fish out of Killybegs, that catch large amounts of mackerel and herring. Their owners have invested significant sums of money to be in that position and provide an efficient way of catching, processing and selling fish. Killybegs is an efficient operation. Mackerel catches are allowed for other vessels. The quota is split between the pelagic fleet and others by 87:13. I have an open mind on examining a more effective and equitable way of allocating quota. However, I do not want to be putting people out of business at the same time. It is not as simple as the suggestion of sharing out the quotas more evenly. Some vessel-owners have economies of scale they need to meet to pay for their machinery. The polyvalent fleet is the largest and it is allowed a small part of the pelagic catch.

Reviewing the Common Fisheries Policy will force us to deal more creatively with issues such as discards, which are unacceptable anyway. It will require us to be more constructive to achieve a sustainable yield from existing fish stocks and ensure they are not reduced. This is about managing the stocks to ensure there is a fishing industry in the future. Developing and expanding aquaculture will be a significant element for the first time in the CFP. I hope we will be able to secure financial assistance to develop aquaculture in Ireland.

There is an issue around harbour dues which is being reviewed. My Department owns and operates six fishing harbours which are commercial operations. We need to listen to the argument of those who claim the dues are too high while ensuring the harbours pay for themselves. This is about balancing commercial reality. These harbours are not the same as privately-run ones which are run commercially and we need to take the public good into account when setting harbour dues. However, we need to have a return from them. The purpose of the review of harbour dues is to get consistency across all six departmental ports. Rents charged on properties in these ports are also another issue. An independent arbitrator will decide on what a fair rent is for these premises.

Is the Government holding back on fish quotas? They are often held back to cover by-catches. For example, when allocating the 22,000 tonnes of boar fish quota, 5% will be kept for by-catches. If a fisherman did not catch a specific species but caught some boar fish, that 5% will cover his bringing them ashore rather than discarding them. These reserve quotas are used before the end of year, regardless.

I cannot give a commitment on the Sneem fishery without examining it in more detail. I hope Senator Sheahan will give me more details about it later.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about salmon fishing which I do not control. There is an anomaly around the management of inland fisheries which includes salmon. It comes under the remit of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. It is a call for the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, not me. I met the fishermen in Donegal who had lost their pots after a storm. I have sympathy for their arguments but we need to be careful that by re-opening a salmon fishery we do not set a precedent. Once it is done for one community, there will be an avalanche of applications from other communities pleading special cases. Why should those on the Aran Islands be treated differently to those living in Allihies?

Bord Iascaigh Mhara is responsible for training in the fisheries sector. There is a staffing problem with training deckhands and skippers. I am not sure what courses are available for up-skilling fish farmers but I will get in contact with BIM about it.