asked the Minister for the Marine the reason projects for new boats were not submitted to take advantage of the new EC structures for fishing by Ireland by the 15 May, 1987 deadline.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - New Boats Projects.
19.
The position is that applications in respect of three new vessels were included in the list submitted by my Department for benefit under the new EC structures policy.
Is the Minister satisfied that three new vessels will suffice as most of our vessels are over ten years old? When every £1 million spent is matched by £3.5 million from the fisheries structures policy in Europe, why have a mere three applications been made? Is the Minister processing more applications to be sent in by the second deadline in November? What plans has he to ensure that there will be a revitalisation of the fishing fleet which is so necessary for a modern, competitive industry in future?
I should like to be able to tell the Deputy that we are processing many more applications but of course there are financial constraints. When the structures policy was agreed, there was a difficulty in so far as we had to provide 10 per cent of the overall cost before we could avail of grants from the Community. I do not believe there will be another batch processed before next year. Speaking from memory, there will be one batch this year and two batches in each year in future. In regard to the question of the return from the investment, the grants available are 35 per cent for new vessels and vessels modernisation, except for those over 35 metres where 25 per cent is payable; 40 per cent for aquaculture and a maximum of 50 per cent for facilities at ports. In the case of vessels up to 33 metres and of aquaculture, the member states' contributions must be in the range of 10 to 30 per cent while it must be between 5 and 25 per cent for facilities at ports and between 10 and 30 per cent for vessels over 33 metres. However, we have submitted applications and if they are successful — I am talking about the industry generally — grants will total £8 million. We submitted a total of 28 applications relating to aquaculture projects, 32 relating to modernisation of vessels and three in respect of new vessels. I accept that the newest boats in the fleet are about four years old. Therefore, we must strive to obtain the maximum grant aid from the Structures Fund for the provision of new boats and the lengthening of existing boats. We were curtailed in the past in so far as we were limited in the size of boats for which we could obtain grant aid. Fortunately, that limitation has been lifted and I hope we will be in a position to avail of greater grants from the total of £650 million under the regulations.
Can I interpret from that that there is a demand from the industry for far more than the three new boats in respect of which applications were submitted under the structures policy but that because the Department of Finance could not put up the Irish Government's share of the funding we could only proceed with these three applications?
Finance is a problem. However, we are looking at a long term programme because it is difficult to plan from year to year. I propose to examine this matter in a much wider context over a four year period to fit in with the structures programme. As I said, finance is a problem particularly since a decision was taken to increase the State input from 5 per cent to 10 per cent. Unfortunately, we cannot submit all the applications in one year, we must plan ahead.
Does the Minister accept that it will be a long time before we have a fleet of vessels fit to compete in the modern industry if we proceed at the rate of three a year? Is he aware that the Scots have 70 applications in for new boats? In Ireland, we have 25 per cent of the waters and it is intolerable that this industry in which the Taoiseach, the Minister and their party placed great faith in developing, should only be looking for grant aid towards three new boats when our fleet is so old.
The figure of three is somewhat deceptive as there are a total of 32 applications relating to the modernisation of vessels which would include their lengthening. The modernisation of many of the 32 boats will contribute to the enlargement of the fleet over the 120 feet bracket and will give us the capacity to catch fish and to compete with the other nations to which the Deputy referred. One of the most modern vessels will be launched next Sunday in Norway for this country and a factory ship is also planned. I am particularly concerned about the larger vessels because we must strive to catch greater quantities of the non-quota species with which we had a problem as far back as 1975. There is a total allowable catch in relation to horse mackerel and blue whiting and we are striving to ensure that we get the maximum quotas available. I can see a great transformation in our fishing fleet over the next four years.