Mary Upton (Dublin South Central, Labour)
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Question 32: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the uptake of the scallop and whitefish decommissioning programmes and the expected outcome on the whitefish programme up to the conclusion of these supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26661/06]

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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The fishing vessel decommissioning scheme, the most extensive ever announced by the Government was originally launched in October 2005 and provides up to €45 million in funding to remove up to 25% of the older, larger and more active vessels in the whitefish sector and also remove excess capacity in the scallop fleet.

To date, twenty-one whitefish vessels and nine scallop vessels and have been decommissioned under the first phase of the decommissioning scheme. €11.6 million in grant aid has been paid in respect of these vessels and funds are available to pay the €4.4 million balance of grant aid allocated to these vessels, subject to the necessary proofs of compliance with the conditions of the scheme being provided to BIM. Consequently, some €29 million in grant aid remains available to fund the decommissioning of additional whitefish vessels.

The decommissioning scheme sets itself the target of removing up to 11,000 Gross Tonnes of capacity from the polyvalent and beam trawl segments of the whitefish fleet and to reduce the capacity of the scallop sector to approximately 4,800 kilowatts of engine power. The twenty-one whitefish vessels removed, to date, have a capacity of 3,354 Gross Tonnes, which represents approximately 30% of the whitefish target. The nine scallop vessels removed from the scallop sector represents the full programme of decommissioning recommended by Mr. Padraig White's report of July 2005.

At the 'Fish Ireland Expo' in Killybegs last Thursday, I launched the second round of the Fishing Vessel Decommissioning Scheme. This round, which is restricted to whitefish fleet, seeks to retire a further significant portion of the older whitefish vessels, so that those vessels remaining in the fleet, can operate in a climate where their catching power and economic requirements are in better balance with the resources available to the State, under the Common Fisheries Policy.

The closing date for the second round of the scheme is Friday 18 August and I anticipate that eligible whitefish vessels will be approved for decommissioning grants in September 2006.