I think most members have the document before the committee. I thank the Chairman for asking me to come before the committee this morning. I asked if we could make a brief presentation to the committee on what the Government is trying to do in terms of putting an integrated marine plan in place for Ireland for the first time. Essentially, what this is trying to do is pull all of the strands of the potential of the ocean and our marine resource and capture that in a sustainable and a renewable way that can create jobs, wealth, employment and commercial opportunity as well as an environmental and leisure resource.
It is true that, historically, many people in Ireland would have turned their back on the sea and we are trying to turn our face to it now. There are some people in this room who know and, in some cases, have worked on the sea in the past and they will probably understand what I am talking about.
No Government has ever attempted to put together a comprehensive marine integrated strategy for the country that involves everything from ocean energy to shipping, marine leisure, fishing, marine tourism, oil and gas exploration and all of the other opportunities that exist. I remind members of the extent of the resource we have. For every 1 sq. km. of land in Ireland we have 9 sq. km. of seabed, and all of the sea above that. We probably have the most fertile fishing waters in the European Union. We have potentially a hugely rich seabed in terms of the natural resources that may be under that seabed and we have 7,500 km of coastline, much of it very dramatic and beautiful, that can and is already attracting large numbers of people from a tourism point of view. We have some of the most impressive natural harbours and bays in the world, never mind in the European Union, that offer significant potential in a series of different areas from aquaculture to marine leisure, shipping, cruise line traffic and so on. Some of these industries are being developed ambitiously and others are not.
In the same way the previous Government got the industry to put together a plan for the development of the agrifood industry that has pulled everybody in the same direction in terms of setting targets for growth and expansion, whether one is a farmer, a processor, a food company, an exporter or an academic, everybody has bought into roughly the same targets in terms of where we want to take the food industry, and it is working in an impressive way. We want to try to do the same for the marine sector, and that is an even more ambitious project.
A nice piece of dinner table or pub information is that if one were to take Ireland's marine resource as part of our sovereign territory, add it to our land resource and compare that to other European countries we would probably be the third or fourth largest country physically in the European Union. This is a huge resource. We are talking about 1 million sq. km. in terms of land and sea, and 900,000 sq. km. in terms of sea.
If we consider the opportunity, the marine industry internationally is worth approximately €1.2 trillion a year. Many people dismissed that at an early stage as accounting for mostly oil and gas but it is not. In terms of the way that is broken up, members will see that it is evenly spread across a series of sectors from seafood to aquaculture, offshore oil and gas, renewable energies, shipping, marine commerce, marine tourism and ocean survey work. The green middle pillar indicated is by far the biggest in terms of value. The right-hand side of the graph is predominantly around manufacturing of marine bio-tech, marine ITC, marine equipment and so on but the services sector is the biggest of the three.
If we look at all of those headings, Ireland has a piece in all of them. Regarding our expansion plans for seafood in terms of fishing and aquaculture, this year the Irish fishing fleet will have over €250 million of fish to catch in terms of quota which was negotiated in December. However, the most exciting growth area on the seafood side is in aquaculture and fish farming but we must be sensitive in terms of where we do that. We need a proper licensing system. We are being forced to do that by the Commission, and rightly so, but we will see a dramatic expansion of aquaculture and fish farming in Ireland in the next five to ten years, particularly in terms of deep water salmon farming. We have the first application for a site 6 km off Galway, 1.5 km east of the southern most Arann island in Galway Bay. It is an application for a salmon farm that will produce 15,000 tonnes of salmon a year.
When we consider that nationally we only produce 12,000 tonnes of salmon a year in total, this one farm alone will double the salmon output from Ireland, which is badly needed. Many of the fish processors in Ireland have to import their salmon from Scotland to fill their orders. Markets are not the problem in the salmon area. Supply and volume is the problem. We have very high quality produce here. It is organic Atlantic salmon. It has a price about 40% above international salmon prices that are produced in much more intense systems. We are planning to expand organic salmon farming in Ireland in a way that is responsible, sympathetic to the environment and very much sustainable but also in a way that will be commercially exciting. The licence is being applied for by Bord Iascaigh Mhara. The site has been chosen by the Marine Institute after much work and research and also working with environmental agencies within Government to make sure we get it right. If that licence is granted, we will then tender it to the private sector to operate it and the estimated turnover at current salmon prices is approximately €103 million a year for one farm. The employment dividend will be between 300 and 400 jobs and the capital cost of putting the cages in the water will be between €50 million and €60 million. This is big business and we hope to build a number of these along the west coast and possibly, the south-west and east coasts. However, one must get the environment right in terms of wave size and consistency and exposure and that is why we are lucky to have scientists of the calibre of Dr. Paul Connolly because the Marine Institute is leading the research.
This is a good example of a new opportunity in seafood is being taken by the Government. We understand that many coastal communities are concerned about the private sector taking the lead in choosing sites for salmon farming and we have decided to choose the sites through the Marine Institute and BIM, thus working with local communities in a positive and proactive way and giving people all the information they want and more in order that we try to bring them with us on this. The deep water salmon farming project will be of huge interest, particularly to communities on the west coast, because of the commercial opportunities available and because it is being done in a way that is sensible and sympathetic to the management of the environment and the stock that will be properly developed. One will be unable to see this fish farm from the mainland because it will be too far offshore. One will only see it, according to the modelling that has been done, from the Aran Islands on a clear day. The visual impact will be practically zero even through there will be a massive physical scale of production. This is an example of an opportunity Ireland has not taken in the past but will in the future and the way in which we plan to do that is sustainable, environmentally responsible and commercially exciting.
We can do in this in many other areas. Cruise liner traffic is an example. This year, 60 cruise liners will dock near Cobh in Cork harbour. Each ship will have an average of 3,000 people on board with each spending approximately €200 over a weekend. That is a significant capital injection into a local economy. Deputy Ferris will be glad to hear many of the passengers travel to Kerry by bus. We are looking to keep more of them in Cork. This is also a good example of an expanding sector. This year, 83 ships will dock in Dublin while the same number will dock in Cork next year. There are opportunities for other harbours such as Killybegs, Rossaveal and those on the south-west coast. We hope by midsummer to have an integrated maritime strategy that can take account of the potential and opportunity in all these sectors and not only in shipping, aquaculture and fishing from the point of view of tourism, manufacturing and offshore renewables and oil and gas exploration. This will also embrace more specialist areas such as seaweed farming.
The reason I wanted to address the committee at this stage is we are in middle of a public consultation process to get ideas and views. This document will give members a good flavour of the opportunities that exist and it puts numbers on some of them. One could read it in half an hour. It will give the committee a good basis for thinking about this issue in a constructive way. By the end of the month, we want to have the input from the public consultation process. I recognise that the timetable is tight from the committee's point of view. If the committee wants to make a submission, we will happily take it after the deadline. If members want to take a few additional weeks, that will not be the end of the world. However, the deadline will not be extended generally for everybody but because it was not possible for me to attend the committee before today, it is up to the committee to decide whether it wants to make a contribution. I would like to hear from members.
Rather than having an open ended public consultation process about the potential of the marine sector generally, we decided to publish ten questions at the back of the document for people to answer. If they want to express views on other areas, that is fine. It would be useful if the committee would try to answer the questions and give us some feedback because members have a wealth of experience and knowledge.
I am a passionate supporter of sustainable exploitation of the potential in our marine resources, predominantly off the west coast. However, there is a significant resource off the east and south coasts. We have this vast untapped resource. Some industries are developing in an exciting way to use that resource. Other industries are yet to be developed and the intention behind the integrated plan is to pull all of the ambition together in one document in order that people will know where the Government wants to take the marine resource and where Ireland is heading in the context of how to harness the potential of this resource. This will enable the private sector to act on that and make appropriate investments consistent with that.
With regard to investment in the food industry, because private sector operators have a clear picture about the ambition and targets of the Government sector by sector, a complementary growth story is emerging between private and public sector interests. We can do the same in the marine sector and I would be interested in members' comments on that.
I am accompanied by Dr. Paul Connolly of the Marine Institute. He is lreland's and probably Europe's leading expert in assessing fish stocks, as he works with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES. Mr. Cecil Beamish is the head of the marine section of my Department and Mr. Philip Hamell is assistant secretary in the Department of the Taoiseach. It says a great deal about this project that it is being led by the Taoiseach's Department. He will launch it. We are developing this through the marine co-ordination committee in government which pulls together a series of Departments that have an interest in the marine, including the Departments of Defence; Communications, Energy and Natural Resources; Transport, Tourism and Sport; Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht; and my Department. It is being led by the Taoiseach's Department, which requires every Department to co-operate in full and to make to people available for the meetings. That process has worked well so far.
