It is over five years now since the Government made a very good decision to ban trawlers over 18 m from fishing within the 6 mile limit. That is over five years ago. It is over ten months since the Court of Appeal held that policy at nought on a very narrow ground. The Government's decision was very good. It was unsustainable. Unfortunately, that unsustainability has continued and the figures for sprat alone over the past five years - excuse the bad pun - have gone off the deep end. We have, on average, 12,400 tonnes a year of sprat being caught when the recommended amount is 2,800 tonnes. I do not know how many times I have raised this issue in English and in Irish. It was a wonderful policy and I fully support the Government on it but I refer to the delay in the action. The last reply I got was that we were waiting for more scientific research. In the meantime, this unsustainable situation continues.

I thank the Deputy. As she knows, there was a court case which struck down a previous decision which was a very good one which was taken forward-----

I know all that.

-----and we received the final judgment in that court case a few months ago. My team and I have been working on this and doing all the preparatory work that is necessary to start this again. The Deputy will understand, given our previous experience relating to the court challenge, which ultimately knocked it down, that we have to be very careful and judicious in each step of that. This is something I want to step forward as quickly as possible. I am very concerned about what is going on with larger vessels, particularly regarding sprat in the inshore inside the 12-mile zone. I want to take this forward and can assure the Deputy we are doing all we can to take it forward as quickly as we can to get to the stage where we get the successful outcome we want to see here. I thank the Deputy for raising this issue.