Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Question 560: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the qualifying criteria for the compensation awarded to fishermen in Castlemaine Harbour, County Kerry for storm damage in October and November 2001; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3483/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I would like to put on record that at no point has compensation been awarded to fishermen in the Castlemaine Harbour, County Kerry, area. It therefore follows that no qualifying criteria exist.

As a non-prejudicial, once off response to the events of late 2000, early 2001, whereby the bottom grown mussel industry in Castlemaine Harbour suffered protracted closures due to biotoxin incidence, resulting in an inability for operators to market their stock during the usual sale period of October to December, the Government decided to provide funding for an Industry Revitalisation Programme, designed exclusively as a rebuilding measure. The qualifying criteria for the Revitalisation Programme required that eligible applicants be those operators who: Were licensed under the 1998-2003 Ground Allocation by the Castlemaine Harbour Fishermen's Co-op Society Ltd., in accordance with the Mussel Fishery (Castlemaine Harbour) Order 1979. Had transplanted either individually, or as part of a group, seed mussels between the 16th and the 21st October 1999, from Inch Point and Rossbeigh Point into the intertidal nursery areas, Area F, known locally as Ban Fluic.