That is no problem. My business and my family have invested tens of thousands of euros in the oyster industry. We have trained staff to handle oysters. We have upgraded premises to meet EU hygiene directives. We have developed suitable grading systems that are appropriate to the fragile nature of the oyster. We have built proper storage facilities to provide healthy habitat conditions for oysters during bad weather. We return undersize and oversize oysters to their natural environment, which is something for which the fishermen must also be thanked. We have developed a brand specifically for the Lough Foyle oyster. We invested in a survey during the mussel seed settlement of 2001, when no State agency supposedly had the funding to do so. It was 100% funded by our company. We prepared and developed a code of practice for the oyster fishery as part of a joint effort with the fishermen. It was the first time all the fishermen agreed with such a code. The chief executive of the Loughs Agency agreed with the code at the time, but he changed his mind about it after 2004. We do not know why he did so, although we could guess. We have invested time and money in going to Dublin, Brussels, Belfast and Derry to highlight the issues of concern. This has cost thousands of euros for us and for the fishermen's groups, which have personally funded their members as well.
One might ask why we have bothered to make such an investment. We have done so for the love of the oyster, quite simply, just as the fishermen have done so for the love of the fish. The oyster feeds us and our children, those who have gone before us and those who will come after us. This fishery is a passion for all involved in Lough Foyle. We will protect it at any cost. The Loughs Agency does not give us a say in these matters. Although it offers consultation, realistically it does whatever suits its own brief. As far as we are concerned, it engages in the consultation exercise merely to say it has covered its job before it continues to do as it pleases. Despite the consultation, it has ignored my company as an industry expert and the fishermen whose expertise has been passed from generation to generation.
In September 2009, we went to Belfast for a meeting of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development of the Northern Ireland Assembly, at which representatives of the Loughs Agency were present. We expressed our concerns about the size and weight measurement guidelines, which had been changed in a way that we did not want. The agency's supposed law had originally provided for a ring size of 75 mm. The representatives of the agency were adamant that this was consistent with Irish law. I suggest they had not read the Irish law book, which provides that no oyster under a three-inch, or 76 mm, ring can be landed. This is how these problems begin. The agency does not know anything about oyster fisheries. Its staff have no experience of running an oyster fishery. Specifically, the agency, which was formally known as the Foyle Fisheries Commission, has only ever dealt with wild salmon populations. Traditional shellfish beds and aquaculture are new to it. Regardless of what consultations the agency has carried out, it has not once listened or adhered to what people on the ground have been telling it.
We have written separately to the Assembly's Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development and the North-South Ministerial Council concerning other issues but to no avail. We did not even receive a response from the North-South Ministerial Council acknowledging our letters. How is it possible that the agency appears to be cleared of any wrongdoing it does? To whom is it answerable? We are supposed to live in a democratic society yet this body seems to be able to do as it pleases without oversight. It seems to be answerable to no one but itself.
The Loughs Agency tells us it must report to the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission. In that case, why is the CEO of the Loughs Agency also the CEO of the Foyle, Carlingford and Irish Lights Commission? How can it claim to act in an open and transparent manner when we do not have somewhere to report wrongdoing? Who acts as the ombudsman in regard to the Loughs Agency?
We are worried about what is happening in Ireland. The country is experiencing an economic Armageddon, the like of which has never been seen before. It appears, however, that the Loughs Agency is handed money from both North and South without any questions being asked. Why? Has the Government sold the rights of the people of County Donegal to the UK? This seems to be the case given that the Assembly's Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development and the North-South Ministerial Council are passing laws for the Loughs Agency. My company and fishermen will never recognise these laws under the current regime.
All the laws that have been introduced are flawed because they have not done anything to help or in any way enhance the public oyster fishery in Lough Foyle. The Loughs Agency claims to have enhanced the fishery but it has ruined it and, in doing so, it will ruin our future. The Loughs Agency is bluffing both Governments to serve its own purpose, that is, to protect the organisation's jobs. All we have seen has been the agency's systematic inability to manage itself or protect a fishery of which it has foolishly been left in charge.
Members may ask the reason this is the case. We have a few plausible answers. The Loughs Agency set up an advisory forum, which is basically a talking shop, to gather information. Through this forum, it collects information which enables it to state it is doing its job and is working with and talking to people in the industry. The members of the advisory forum are divided into four focus groups which are supposed to meet approximately six times each year. Our focus group, known as the aquaculture and shell fisheries group, has never met.
The advisory forum met on the following dates in the past three years: Armagh on 21 February 2008; the Loughs Agency headquarters on 18 September 2008; Armagh City Hotel on 26 November 2008; the Silverbirch Hotel in Omagh on 20 May 2009; and the Loughs Agency headquarters on 23 September 2009. Rather than 18 meetings, a total of five meetings have been held. As is clear, meetings are not held consistently and, worst of all, the Loughs Agency indicates it has an aquaculture and shell fisheries focus group, even though such a group has never met and exists on paper only. Does this not set alarm bells ringing?
I refer now to the biggest con of all. The MMV Ostrea is the Loughs Agency’s new flagship from New Zealand. It was originally grant aided by both Governments to the tune of £750,000. The cost is still rising and Loughs Agency staff blab that the cost of the vessel is now nearer £2 million. Who is conning whom?
If another example is needed, I refer to the Lough Foyle native oyster survey of January and February 2010. I have provided members with minutes of a meeting of the North-South Ministerial Council of September 2010 which was chaired by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan. Two main areas of concern are highlighted. According to the document, Ministers "noted the effectiveness of the agency's response to pollution incidents on the Foyle system and the positive impact of the regulation of the Lough Foyle oyster fishery including improving the catches in the 2009-10 season". How can the agency or anyone else claim to have improved catches on Lough Foyle public oyster fishery? Fishermen and businesses such as mine have for years been implementing harsh measures on grading and return policies for undersize and oversize oysters. Given that the agency took control of licensing the oyster fishery for the first time in September 2009, how could it have improved catches for the 2009 season? This improvement could only have been achieved through the policies we pursued over four to five years, the period required for oysters to reach marketable size.
l will now describe a new level of corruption involving this group. The native oyster survey in Lough Foyle, as highlighted in red in the presentation, was carried out by the MMV Ostrea. According to the minutes of the North-South Ministerial meeting of September 2010, Ministers noted that the Loughs Agency’s new monitoring vessel, the MMV Ostrea, “is now operational and has facilitated the surveying of the seed mussel areas in Carlingford Lough and the native oyster fishery in Lough Foyle”. A survey carried out in January and February 2010 was the only oyster survey carried out so far this year in Lough Foyle. The MMV Ostrea has a tracking system fitted, as is required by law, which appears to work only when the vessel is in operation. Where was the vessel in January and February this year?
Members have before them a series of images taken from the ship AIS tracking system, a highly accurate website. The document features a series of numbers with lines underneath. Members will see, at the centre of the maps, a small rectangle with the words "MMV Ostrea” beside it. On 4 January 2010, the vessel was docked at Lisahally and there was no movement. On 8 January 2010 it was also docked at Lisahally, with slight movement towards Derry and back, indicated by a black or purple line. On 22 January 2010, the vessel was docked at Lisahally and moved to Derry and back, again indicated by a line. On 2 and 8 February 2010, the MMV Ostrea docked at Lisahally with no movement. On 10 February it was docked at Lisahally with little movement, as indicated by the small line. On 12 February it was docked at Lisahally with no movement and on 16 February it was docked at Lisahally with little movement, as indicated by a line. On 22 and 23 February and 15 and 22 March, the vessel was docked at Lisahally with no movement. On 27 March, it was docked at Lisahally, with little movement, as indicated by squiggles. On 28 March it was docked at Lisahally with no movement. On 8 April 2010, the vessel was docked at Lisahally, moved to Foyle Bridge and back again. On 9 April 2010 the vessel docked at Lisahally, moved to Foyle Bridge and back again. Eventually, on 11 April 2010 the vessel made its longest journey from Lisahally, Derry to Killkeel. To cut a long story short, how could this vessel owned by the Loughs Agency and funded by Governments South and North of the Border have carried out the January to February 2010 oyster survey in Lough Foyle? The answers lies with the fishermen and the fishing vessels the Loughs Agency hired to do the oyster survey, none of which they have accounted for. Neither have they accounted for them to the North-South Ministerial Council in the presence of the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Ryan. Who smells a cover up?
The big question is that it is said that the MMV Ostrea did the survey and members now know it did not. Where did they source the money that paid for the fishermen and their vessels which were actually used in the said survey? For now we have given the committee enough to go on and to question the legitimacy of the Loughs Agency. We openly state today that we will not recognise this body as it stands under the current regime nor any laws which have been foolishly handed to it as we have no faith in the Loughs Agency or its commitment to Lough Foyle.
We ask the committee today to take action. We ask members to consider the following points and implement them. First, to implement a full public inquiry into the Loughs Agency regarding mismanagement by the senior management team. Second, as the Department with responsibility for the marine can issue foreshore licences for Lough Foyle, it should issue a removal order for the illegal aquaculture and start the process of alien invasive species removal, for which it can probably get EU funding. For the benefit of the public oyster fishery and the community that this fishery supports I urge the committee to please do something. Committee members should not be the ones that ignored the next Anglo Irish Bank-FÁS debacle.
