Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will check where we are at with the SFPA consultant committee and will revert directly to the Deputy on that. As I said to Deputy Collins earlier in relation to the Celtic Sea herring committee, I have a request for inshore representation with regard to which I will be in touch with them. I take on board the Deputy's representation and advocacy as well. More broadly, I agree that the right way forward is to give more consideration as to how quota can be used in the best way possible. Generally, that works very effectively because the QMAC, that is, the quota management committee that has all the fishing representatives on it and which my Department services, decides each month how to share out and manage our national quota to keep boats as active as possible over the course of the year. Generally, it is a place for thorough discussion and consensus as much as possible and that then comes to me for sign-off. It has come to me where there have been differing views and where that is the case, I make a call but that is the minority of times. In the four years I have been Minister, there has only been one occasion when I have gone against the view of the QMAC and that was when legal advice meant that I could not go with what was being recommended. That shows that generally, it works in a collaborative way in terms of the management of the quota. Of course everybody would like to have more but in terms of managing what we have, that is the approach taken.

As for the north-west herring advisory committee, there have been challenges there and I want to work through those. A couple of organisations have left and I want to try to get everybody back together to find as collaborative a way forward as possible in terms of how we manage that fishery now that it is a good news story and has reopened. It took hard work to rebuild the stocks and there is some disagreement as to how they should be managed but I want to get people back together to advise me on that.