Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1883. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the steps that he is taking to support the inshore fishing sector. [2262/23]

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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1890. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the amount of EU Brexit funding that has been made available to the inshore fishing sector; his plans to provide further funding from EU Brexit funding to the sector; and to outline his engagement with inshore fishing representative bodies on this matter. [2416/23]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1883 and 1890 together.

I established the Seafood Task Force in 2021 to examine measures which could be taken to mitigate the impact on the Seafood Sector and Coastal Communities of Brexit and the EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement. The Task Force had significant representation from the industry including inshore fisheries representation and developed a series of recommendations. Since the publication of its report, I have introduced a number of schemes in line with the recommendations.

One such measure was the Brexit Inshore Fisheries Business Model Adjustment Scheme. This de minimis short-term support scheme for the inshore sector aimed to help it deal with the difficult trading conditions that have arisen because of Brexit. It also aimed to help the sector transition to longer-term restructuring measures. It operated from January to March 2021 and was designed to assist inshore fishers to adjust their business and marketing plans to the post Brexit environment. BIM provided four dedicated online training modules to participants and grant aid of up to €4,000 to help put into practice the learning from these modules. Applicants had to complete the training before payment could be made. There were some 800 successful applications from inshore fishers, who received total grant aid of €2.66 million.

In March 2022, I also announced a Brexit Inshore Marketing Scheme, designed to assist the inshore fisheries sector to mitigate the impacts of Brexit by growing value in existing markets and developing new markets. As part of this scheme, Bord Bia implemented a marketing plan for supporting the sales and promotion of inshore species such as Irish crab, lobster, whelks, inshore herring/mackerel and line caught hake and pollock on both the domestic and export markets. The scheme operated in 2022 and will continue into 2023, with a budget of €615,000 per annum.

I have also announced a number of other schemes which will support the Inshore sector, both directly and indirectly. This includes the €55 million Brexit Adjustment Local Authority Marine Infrastructure (BALAMI) Scheme, which is seeing investment in harbour infrastructure to support the fishing sector. More recently, I announced the fulfilment of another Task Force recommendation in the form of the Off Register Capacity Buy Out Scheme. This scheme will see fishers offered a premium for capacity which is not currently licensed to a sea-fishing boat for a variety of reasons such as vessels being lost at sea, damaged or in need of repair/upgrade. The effect of this will be that in the wake of national fleet restructuring, that the inshore sector will not become overcrowded and that the capacity of the inshore fleet will match the fishing opportunities which are available to it. The overall budget for this scheme is €2.8 million.

It is important to note that the Task Force was set up with a specific terms of reference and the Brexit Adjustment Reserve which is funding the majority of schemes has a specific set of purposes. Longer term development of the Inshore sector will fall to other funding mechanisms and initiatives. My Department’s Seafood Development Programme under European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) 2014-2020 has offered a range of financial supports to our inshore fishing sector for capital investment on board and ashore, for training and for organisation and capacity building within the sector, while State bodies provide a range of services to the inshore fleet including advisory services and stock conservation supports. With this Programme approaching its conclusion, I was pleased to announce a new Programme under the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) was adopted by the European Commission in December 2022. Under this programme a new range of schemes will be developed to support the Inshore fleet over the coming years.

In terms of my engagement with the sector, on these and other matters, I last met specifically with the National Inshore Fisheries Forum (NIFF) in December 2022 to hear the concerns and goals of the inshore fishing sector. The NIFF and its supporting network of six Regional Inshore Fisheries Forums are consultative bodies established to foster industry-led development of proposals for the management of fish stocks within six nautical miles of the Irish shore. Since their inception, the Forums have developed initiatives to protect the future of the inshore sector. The NIFF brought forward the first industry-led Strategy for the sector in 2019 and is now implementing this with support from my Department, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) and other agencies. The Strategy flowed from an extensive consultation process that engaged the inshore sector and other stakeholders.

In addition to this I frequently engage with the sector as a whole. For example, most recently on 10 January I met with fishing industry representatives to discuss EU/Norway negotiations on fisheries agreements and to provide progress reports on the implementation of Task Force recommendations. The Inshore sector was represented at this meeting.