Emmet Stagg (Kildare North, Labour)
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Question 104: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if a person or organisation, other than him and his Department officials or persons directly involved with the drawing up of the terms and conditions of the scheme, had access to the conditions of the lost at sea scheme at any stage prior to the launch of the scheme in June 2001. [3887/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The Lost at Sea Scheme was a limited scheme introduced in June 2001, with a closing date of 31 December 2001, whose objective was to enable qualifying applicants, who were otherwise unable to do so for financial or related reasons, to continue a family tradition of sea-fishing.

It was a bounded, limited scheme under which replacement capacity (gross tons and kWatts) that would otherwise have had to be bought on the tonnage market, was provided free of charge to qualifying applicants who had lost a fishing vessel between 1980 and the establishment of the Fishing Boat Register in 1990, but who had been unable to replace it for verified financial reasons. The scheme was intended to assist families in introducing a replacement for the lost vessel which would be owned and skippered by the applicant or by an immediate relation of the applicant.

The terms of the scheme also specified further conditions relating to the use of the capacity once deemed eligible.

The scheme was promulgated by the (then) Department of the Marine and Natural Resources. This Department assumed responsibility for sea fisheries in October 2007.

There are records of contacts in relation to the scheme on the Departmental files. The files relate to the evolution of the scheme and indicate a range of contacts, meetings and correspondence going back to March 1999 to and from interested parties including public representatives, individual vessel owners, fishermen's representatives and Producer Organisations (POs), both at Departmental and Ministerial level.

The terms and conditions of the scheme would necessarily have reflected the views of all the stakeholders as well as public policy considerations and legal requirements at the time.