Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 151: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if his attention has been drawn to the fact that aquaculture in Scotland alone is 50 times the size of that in Ireland while the Norwegians produce as much in one week as Ireland produces in a year despite the ideal conditions for aquaculture here; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4899/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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With regard to the farming of Atlantic salmon, the facts are that Ireland turned out just less than 10,000 metric tonnes in 2007, the Scottish industry produced some 170,000 metric tonnes (about 17 times more than Ireland) and the Norwegians produced approximately 770,000 metric tonnes.

It should be noted that the Irish aquaculture industry also has a substantial shell fish farming component, which neither the Scotland nor Norway have. Ireland's shell fish farmers produce between 45,000 to 50,000 metric tonnes of high quality mussels and oysters annually and new species of shell fish like abalone and scallops are also being farmed in increasing volumes.

The considerable potential of the Irish aquaculture sector to create wealth and jobs in coastal communities has been recognised by the Government for some time. The Seafood Strategy, Steering a New Course — Strategy for a Restructured, Sustainable and Profitable Irish Seafood Industry 2007-2013, identifies a much bigger role for aquaculture in meeting the increasing demand for seafood and sets down a number of recommendations that will deliver significant development and expansion of the aquaculture sector. That strategy has been translated into a series of detailed actions and schemes and these have been incorporated in the non co-funded Fisheries Operational Programme 2007-2013.

A provision of €5 million has been made in my Department's Vote to support Aquaculture development in 2009. It is planned to roll out a number of actions to assist the development of aquaculture and draw down the available funds in the near future.