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The agenda for today's meeting is the sustainable management of crayfish fishing. We are joined from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine by Ms Carol Forrest and Ms Geraldine O'Donovan; from the Marine Institute by Dr. Oliver Tully; from the National Inshore Fisherman's Association, NIFA, by Mr. Michael Desmond, Mr. John Menarry, Mr. Gus O'Donovan, Mr. Edward Moore, Mr. Michael Hennessy and a number of colleagues in the Public Gallery; from the National Inshore Fisheries Forum, NIFF, by Mr. Eamon Dixon; and by Dr. Nicholas Payne, accompanied by his colleagues Dr. Damien Haberlin and Ms Grace Carr. The witnesses opening statements have been circulated to members. Rather than reading their statements I will allow them two minutes to give a brief synopsis and then we will proceed to questions and answers.

I invite Ms Forrest to begin.

I thank the committee for the invitation to speak about the issues relating to the sustainable management of crayfish fishing. I am head of the inshore and seafood climate and environmental division in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I am joined by my colleague Geraldine O’Donovan, who is head of the inshore unit in that division. I will begin by providing some background on crayfish and the crayfish fishery. It is a high-value species. It is a bit like lobster and the stock is sometimes known as spiny lobster. It is fished primarily off the south-west coast. There are some smaller fisheries on the west and north-west coasts. The fishery usually occurs from approximately mid-March to December. It is an important fishery for the livelihoods of the inshore fishers, particularly along the south-west coast. The number of vessels targeting crayfish has been increasing, particularly since 2020, with an estimated value of landings of €3 million in 2024.

It is primarily fished with tangle nets. They have a large mesh, but the gear can present a threat of by-catch for other marine species, particularly if the deployment is not well-managed. The Department has been working to address concerns associated with the use of tangle nets in the fishery and for that reason has funded research undertaken by the European Maritime Fisheries Fund, EMFF, and the more recent European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, EMFAF. Research has shown how tangle nets used in the fishery can impact on other marine species caught as by-catch. It has improved data collection, explored alternative fishing methods that mitigate by-catch while looking to support the economic viability of the fishery. The Marine Institute has successfully trialled crayfish pots as a low-impact fishing method, and a larger scale trial is planned for later this year. In December, the Marine Institute published its report. I will let its representatives speak to that more, but from the Department's perspective, we are examining the findings of the study and the recommendations in conjunction with MI colleagues. I thank and recognise the crayfish operators who contributed to the study, some of whom are here.

I confirm that we are committed to engaging with fishers and other stakeholders and advancing research on the fishery through the work of the MI to ensure the long-term sustainability of the fishery and protect Ireland’s marine biodiversity. We are engaging with the MI and inshore representatives on additional management measures that could be introduced. We will also consider, where relevant, grant aid to support the purchase of more selective gear. However, additional management measures will need to be based on scientific evidence and implemented in collaboration with the sector to minimise economic disruption while maximising conservation outcomes. We can take any questions.

The Marine Institute welcomes the opportunity to talk about the crayfish project work we have been engaged in on the south-west coast in collaboration with the fishing industry. The Marine Institute, established under the Marine Institute Act, 1991, is the State agency responsible for providing services in marine research and development that promote economic development, create employment and protect the marine environment.

Monitoring of the crayfish or spiny lobster fishery from 2018 to 2025 has deepened our understanding of the fishery, crayfish stocks and the two-way interaction between the fishery and wildlife, including the unintended by-catch of endangered and protected species. The project is a collaboration between fishermen, mainly in the Tralee Bay and Dingle Bay in north Kerry. Fishermen were contracted to the Marine Institute to provide data and other services required by the project, including providing vessels and crew for all associated scientific work. The overall principle and objective of the project was to enable the development of a low-impact, economically viable and sustainable fishery for crayfish. Crayfish is the highest value species per unit weight caught by the Irish fleet. It is twice as valuable as lobster and 15 times the value of crab. This is important in that viable incomes can be derived from landing relatively small numbers of crayfish per trip. Landings of crayfish and the number of fishermen targeting crayfish with tangle nets has increased in recent years. It is an important species in the mix of species that inshore fishermen along the Irish coast rely on.

The current project confirmed that significant numbers of endangered and protected species are caught in by-catch. It also shows that the by-catch species were different in Tralee and Dingle fleets, although they only fish 20 km from each other. It is therefore difficult to extrapolate the project data to tangle net fisheries on other coasts. GPS tracking of the vessels provided, for the first time, an accurate estimation of the total number of trips undertaken by the local fleets in Tralee and Dingle. By combining this GPS data and the approximately 800 fishing trips that we observed in collaboration with the fishermen, we were able to estimate total by-catch and assess the significance of this for the species concerned.

We also engaged in a number of other projects with the industry. We tagged several endangered species to monitor how they overlap with the fishery and to identify their seasonal migration into and out of Tralee Bay in particular. We have underwater baited video surveys to look at the distribution of these species and at biodiversity generally. We had thousands of crayfish tagged and released during the project to provide information on migration, growth rate and stock size. We have shown a connection between Irish stocks and French stocks of crayfish. We have completed several trials with low-impact fishing gears in outer Tralee Bay and showed how trap design influences catches of crayfish. This work is ongoing and will be extended to the Dingle area in 2026. This work compares catches in equivalent amounts of fishing effort by pots and nets, what the resulting catches would be, the relative input costs and estimates the relative net income from each gear type. A future viable, sustainable and low-impact pot fishery for crayfish may be possible. The viability of making that transition from nets to pots needs further consideration in collaboration with fishermen.

Recent recommendations have called for the removal of the crayfish tangle net fishery following the Marine Institute risk assessment. Inshore fishermen recognise that interaction with protected species must be taken seriously. Many of the vessels involved actively co-operated in data collection and reporting, and without the fishermen’s participation some of the information before the committee would not exist.

However, NIFA cannot support the immediate removal of another traditional inshore fishery before practical management measures are properly attempted. Closure is not management; it is what happens when management fails.

I wish to share my speaking time with someone who took part in the trial, Mr. Edward Moore.

Ar son na n-iascairí, gabhaim buíochas le comhaltaí an chomhchoiste go léir. Tá an comhchoiste tábhachtach dúinn, agus tá sé sin ag teacht chun cinn inniu. Murach an comhchoiste seo, ní bheadh am ná áit againn chun ár gcás a chur in iúl go bhfuil ár slí beatha i mbaol. Thar ceann na bhfinnéithe atá anseo agus na bhfear agus na mban atá mar bhaill de Chumann Náisiúnta Iascairí Cois Cósta, gabhaim buíochas ó chroí.

Gabhaim buíochas le Edward Moore. Tá a chaint déanta go gairid agus go breá. Is cinnte go mbeidh deis ag comhaltaí an chomhchoiste go léir sainmhíniú a dhéanamh uirthi.

Tiocfaidh sé sin chun cinn inniu.

On behalf of the National Inshore Fishermen’s Forum, NIFF, I want to sincerely thank the committee for inviting us to participate in this very important discussion on crayfish fisheries, particularly in relation to the use of tangle nets.

Tangle netting for crayfish has been an important and long-established part of the inshore fishing sector for many vessels around our coast. It is common practice in many regions, although activity levels can vary from area to area and from season to season. Over the years, fishermen and women have developed significant skill and experience in this fishery. Advances in electronic equipment and seabed mapping now allow operators to better identify suitable fishing grounds before shooting gear. This not only improves efficiency but also helps to reduce unwanted by-catch by ensuring gear is deployed in appropriate areas.

NIFF and the regional inshore fisheries forums, RIFFs, have recognised for some time that strong management practices are essential to ensure the long-term sustainability of any fishery. For that reason, our organisations have been working collaboratively to develop a structured management plan for the future of crayfish tangle netting. As part of this proposal, we are recommending the introduction of a four-month closed season during the winter period, during which no vessels would target crayfish. This measure would: support stock sustainability during a sensitive period; reduce gear soak time, as weather conditions outside winter are generally more suitable for hauling, and make compliance and monitoring of the closed season significantly easier for the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA.

There has been broad agreement among NIFF and RIFF members on these proposed measures and we are confident that a fully agreed and finalised management document can be completed within the coming weeks.

We believe that a complete ban on tangle nets would represent another serious blow to the inshore fishing sector and would be extremely difficult to enforce effectively. A collaborative and managed approach offers a far more practical and sustainable pathway forward. We remain committed to working constructively with the committee, the Department, and enforcement authorities to ensure a viable and sustainable crayfish fishery for many years to come.

I thank the Chair and the committee for the invitation to talk about this very important topic. I am an associate professor at Trinity College and I have a special interest in the biology and ecology of sharks, rays and skates. My role here today is to help contextualise the findings of the recent report, which I find quite concerning in so much as estimated numbers of by-catch of critically endangered species such as angel sharks, flapper skate and tope sharks.

Those species are currently assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN, as critically endangered, which they define as species “facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild”. That is across the whole range. Part of the problem and concern around the status of these animals is that sharks, skate and rays grow and reproduce very differently to other fish like tuna, cod and salmon. The way they reproduce and the duration of reproduction makes it very difficult for these animals to recover from over-extraction and impact on the fishery. That is why we are particularly concerned for these animals based on their biology.

There is a range of obligations that Ireland is currently facing, such as the marine strategy framework directive, the OSPAR convention and EU regulations that potentially raise compliance concerns around how Ireland is continuing to authorise tangle nets in these areas. Rather than trying to demonise the fishing community here, it is really important to acknowledge that fishing is an integral part of Irish culture and it is really clear that the fishing sector in Ireland is already facing a huge amount of challenges. It is very difficult with a series of quota reductions influencing livelihoods that impact entire coastal communities. We are very aware of that. I want to also acknowledge that it was great to see the level of engagement of the crayfish fishermen in these surveys. There is really strong engagement from the community. We really do not want to support a top-down approach by imposing another closure of the fishery but, at the same time, we do need action quite urgently to mitigate the impact of tangle nets on these particularly sensitive by-catch species.

The two by-catch monitoring surveys undertaken by the Marine Institute span almost a decade. That time between data generation and evidence of the problem in terms of by-catch is very difficult to reconcile with the conservation status of these species. That is why we request consideration of rapid measures where possible to try to address this issue and in consultation with the fishermen, try to find ways to economically support a transition to lower-impact methods of targeting crayfish where possible. Pot fishing may have a particular role in that case. Gabhaim buíochas leis an gcomhchoiste.

I thank everyone for their presentations. I now move to our members.

I thank all the witnesses for their statements. From reading through those statements, it is clear a solution is possible. The language from the Department, the Marine Institute and Dr. Payne indicates they all acknowledge the need to work with the fishermen and their full participation in the surveys. We would not have this information if they had not facilitated this. The two fishing organisations have also put forward a solution.

I will direct my first question to Ms Forrest. I assume the Department will oversee all of this in conjunction with the Minister. The two fishing organisations here have indicated potential solutions. They have made it clear that they are opposed to a complete ban but they are very much open to solutions, indeed in the weeks ahead according to the contribution from Mr. Dixon from NIFF. Can Ms Forrest give us a sense of how the Department intends to deal with that process?

We have a number of mechanisms. Generally, we would get a proposal from the inshore sector. At the start, that would generally come from one of the RIFFs and it would then go to NIFF. NIFF would agree it if it seems to be something it can get behind. However, throughout that process, there could be consultation with ourselves and with the Marine Institute to see if there were any issues with the proposal as it is put forward. We are working through that process at the moment. There is a proposal potentially on the table but it is back with NIFF now to take another look at it and to the RIFF maybe for a slight amendment.

That is the process of how it would come up to us. From there on we would examine it and take appropriate steps as we would do for any change to policy. It is not a quick fix in a couple of weeks. There is potentially a lot involved here and we would have to get evidence and put everything before the Minister to make a decision on it.

It is fair to say, and this is really important, that in dealing with conservation measures, we deal in partnership with the fishermen who fish those grounds. I invite the representatives of NIFA and NIFF to give a sense of the proposals they have for resolving this.

I completely agree with Ms Forrest. Obviously, we have to work with her to get any of these proposals brought to the inshore marine group, IMG, which I think is the body that takes them up after they have been approved at NIFF level. We have been working on this crayfish one for a good while. It has gone back and over and it is not always easy to get complete buy-in from every fisherman in the country. It is difficult enough, so we have to go to each of the RIFFs and we have had to do that a couple of times, but we are very close to having it finalised. It came from the south-west RIFF to begin with as well but we are very close to it. I think we have general agreement from all of the different RIFFs at the moment so it is just a matter of getting it back to a NIFF meeting and having it agreed. Then obviously we have to pass it over, as Ms Forrest said, to her Department. I do not know what the time frame involved is but it will be on the Department's side. From the industry side, I would say that we could have that ready for our next NIFF meeting and agreed by all of the different RIFFs.

I just want to comment on behalf of NIFA. I am also the chair of the south-west RIFF from where this proposal actually originated nearly a year ago. Hearing what I have heard here, I want to point out that fishermen have been proactive rather than reactive. This proposal has come out prior to any reports being launched. Fishermen are looking for management to be brought in here. At our last meeting, fishermen felt that they wanted to actually strengthen the proposal. As Mr. Dixon said, the original proposal is with regard to the season, and what is being discussed is from 15 December to 2 April. We did not want to finish on April Fool's Day. That is a substantial amount of a season that is actually closed. The reason we are going with that is because, with the loss of every other fishery, we have felt that fishermen had no other option. When they lost the pollock fishery, guys went away and decided that they were going to try to fish crayfish nets. They had no other form of income so they were fishing crayfish nets for 12 months of the year. These guys have come forward and decided among themselves that this is what they want to do. They have also now strengthened the proposal to commit to a soak time. In my opinion, as a person who has been involved in this fishery since its beginning and has been 40-odd years at it, both pot fishery and the net fishery, soak time is key to any solution to any problem with tangle net fisheries.

I want to point out some of the discrepancies in the report. Tope, a type of shark, is being counted as endangered species. It is not endangered in the north-east Atlantic. That is factually untrue. The way it has been worded, people make out that these skate have been killed, but 95% of our by-catch is released alive. That is not written in any monitoring report. Tangle nets in the environmental chamber of horrors are regarded as a bad thing. The purpose of a tangle net is to keep the fish alive, that they do not get meshed and choked. We release these fish alive. A dead crayfish is no good to us because they have to be sold alive. The whole purpose of the tangle net is to keep them alive. They are not choked in the net but none of that is written in the report. I think the word "estimate" is used 78 times in the report. The definition of the word "science" is observation based on facts. If there are 78 estimates in a report, where are the facts in that? That is not science. That is the problem we have with it.

Before I start, I am wondering if we should give Dr. Tully an opportunity to come back because-----

I am watching the clock and I want to give everyone an opportunity.

They were quite-----

I will not deprive him

Everybody has got the questions, so everybody can ask whatever questions they want.

Ask him the same question and you will get a reply.

I thank the witnesses for coming in today. It is important that there is such representation from the inshore sector here. Any solution to this will have to be done with the sector because its members are on the ground and are the ones, through their practices, who will be managing this on behalf of the Department. I thank Mr. Moore and his colleagues for participating in the survey. I know it is very difficult to participate in a survey when you are not sure what the outcomes of that will be for your business. It is the case that the fishermen are operating within the regime that is there. Tangle nets are allowed. There are very few, if any, restrictions on them. The fishers are operating their businesses within the current structures and it is up to the Department to regulate that.

My first question is to Ms Forrest. I am really pleased that work is under way at the moment to come up with a management plan or some sort of management system. Ms Forrest said it will not be a quick fix and that anything that happens needs to be based on evidence. I will go back through the information I have. In 2005, BIM acknowledged the significant by-catch losses from tangle nets. In 2012, it did the same. From 2017 to 2020, the Marine Institute gathered information on tangle nets and the impact of that on by-catch, and it recommended at that point transitioning the fishery back to pots. There was then a public consultation in 2021. There has been another Marine Institute report for 2021 to 2024, the details of which I will go into. There has been a lot of work over many years. I think it has always been known that there is a problem with this fishery and the impact it potentially has on the particularly vulnerable and protected species.

The latest report from the Marine Institute estimated, and I take Mr. Desmond's point about the estimate but the institute cannot calculate every single species - that is just not possible - so this scientifically accurate, but the report estimated 1,161 grey seals, which are a protected species. The report specifies that the seal population of the Great Blasket Island, which is in a national marine park and a special area of conservation, could not sustain this level of mortality. It estimated 81 angel sharks were caught. This is a critically endangered species globally. In fact, Ireland is one of the few areas where this species is now found, so there is a responsibility on us to protect it. It lists an estimated 1,712 critically endangered flapper skate, two critically endangered white skate, endangered undulate ray, tope, which are endangered in other areas, and I have seen footage of basking sharks caught in these nets. What has the Department been doing for the last ten or 15 years? The problem has been there. The Department is still issuing licenses and Ms Forrest said that the fishing effort has increased substantially since 2020. There is a responsibility on us and we are obliged under so many different marine statutes to actually protect these species. Why has the Department continued to issue licences? Why has it not brought in any management plans to date?

Regarding licences, there might be a perception that licences are issued for tangle net fishing. Licences are issued by the licensing authority and they can have certain area, gear and size restrictions, but there are not specific licenses issued for boats to participate in a tangle net fishery using tangle nets. I just wanted to clarify that. Regarding what has gone on over the last number of years, we have been aware that there are issues around by-catch but it is about coming together and getting the science in place fully, and that takes a long time.

We have been funding the MI. We have had two funded projects under the MI. The first took place under the last seafood development programme, which was under the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. We have had a more recent one take place, the results of which were published last December. The findings of that more recent one, as they are set out, are much starker than what we had seen before. We are, however, fully engaged on this. We engage with the industry through the processes I mentioned to Deputy Mac Lochlainn. The industry, as it said itself, acknowledges this and is looking for a way forward. We are available to facilitate that but we would have to have it based on the evidence and would have to have the buy-in from the industry. That is very important because you want a situation where you can have an economically viable fishery while still meeting any conservation objectives.

Dr. Tully might want to come in a bit more on this, but in respect of by-catch, there are certain measures in place that we would have to comply with coming forward. Under the nature restoration law, we will have to do something to try to preserve angel shark, for example. White skate may be mentioned in that as well. We are aware that there are things coming, but it has been a moving space.

There are already obligations. We do not need to look to the nature restoration law to understand what our obligations are to protect these species. We have already signed up to things. Why has the Department not used any fisheries Natura declarations to deal with this issue as a precautionary measure?

I will come in on that. In terms of fisheries Natura declarations, as Deputy Whitmore rightly says, the grey seal, for example, is protected in the Blaskets. In that regard, there has been a netting ban in that area as it is since 2006. The Deputy is quite correct that the legal instrument to bring in some further initiatives in terms of the protection of the grey seal would be through a fisheries Natura declaration, but it is also a matter of finding the appropriate closed area. We are very aware that the grey seal, although it is absolutely a protected species under Natura 2000, is in a favourable status as well in terms of the National Parks and Wildlife Service reports under Article 17.

Both Marine Institute reports, however, the one from 2014 to 2020 and the recent one, have said that the population on the Blasket Islands will not be able to sustain itself, and that is not within a national park. The evidence has been there and the Department has not done anything with it, from what I can see.

Certainly, we can look at what an area and extending a fisheries Natura declaration would look like and how spatially it would look in terms of the grey seal haul-out sites.

The fisheries Natura declarations are supposed to be put in place to manage any fishery that could be damaging to protected species or protected habitats, and that is through the EU habitats directive. As far as I am aware, I do not think there is a net closure around the Blaskets. There is a net closure in the Tralee Bay area, but the majority of the by-catch of grey seals was around the Blasket Islands. In addition, last year, no fisheries Natura declarations were put in place. Since 2019, there have been only four, and all together, for the whole island of Ireland, there are actually only 11 of these. Some of them have only minimum measures or they are quite small in areas. As well as that, management plans are being proposed by the fishing industry. I am aware of one in the north-east Irish Sea for the razor clam fishery. The fishermen have put this plan together and have submitted it through the proper channels, and then they do not hear anything back from the Department about it. I think this happens around the island as well. The fact that we are not putting in these management plans or these fisheries Natura declarations is failing not only the environment but also the fishing industry. The last Article 17 report showed that 12 out of 14 marine habitats were in bad or unfavourable condition. There are other pressures on them, like pollution and run-off from the land, but one of the main pressures identified was fishing pressure. This negatively impacts the fishing industry because it has been shown globally - there are many different reports I can send on to members - that if proper conservation measures are put in place in certain areas, those areas then turn into fisheries recovery zones, basically, and fish are able to grow bigger and reproduce more. That has a positive impact on the industry, whereby they can catch with less fishing effort and, it is hoped, get more for their catch because the fish are bigger and healthier. It does not happen overnight; it takes a long time. Ireland is very far behind in this. We should have been putting these measures in place decades ago. We would be in a very different situation now had we done so. We really need to look at how management plans and FNDs are put in place in Ireland.

Ms Carr mentioned having reports. If she wishes to share them with us, the secretariat will arrange that they will be sent to our members.

I will get right into it. This question is for Ms Forrest. The Department ran a public consultation in 2021 to gather views on possible conservation measures. Why have the findings not yet been published, and does the Department plan on publishing them in the future?

At the time a public consultation is run, in this case in or around the autumn of 2021, after the consultation process ends, there is obviously a period when we need to do a bit of analysis on the findings. That took place in this case into 2022. At that stage, the most recent MI project had kicked off. On top of that, progress was being made in respect of the MPA legislation. We were moving towards the publication in 2021 of the general scheme of that Bill. Because there were a lot of developments in that area, the decision was taken not to publish the results of the consultation at that time, just waiting to see what would happen with each of those two developments. As the Deputy is probably aware, as regards the MPA legislation, now it is being considered that it would be folded into the Maritime Area Planning Act, and then, as he is also aware, the recent publication of the MI report has just taken place, so in terms of the publication of the results of the consultation, they are available. We have completed our report on them. It is just that they have not been published and put up online. We could publish them. We would just have to caveat that there has been a significant period of time since the public consultation took place.

Is there a plan in the near future to publish this?

We can look at it. We have not come to that decision yet.

What are the results of low-impact gear trials? Could the pot design be modernised to help the fisherman transition back without big losses? Can that be done? Could the Marine Institute also answer that question? I will let Mr. Hennessy answer that.

We have participated in the pot trials over recent years and we have tried four or five different kinds of pots. We had parlour pots to try to keep the cray in the pot. Our main trouble with the pots we have always traditionally used is that the cray will go into the pot but jump out again. They will not stay inside. We tried it in August and September. It was fairly successful but the weather was very fine and it was in shallow water - closed - where there is no net fishing anyway. The trouble is that if you stop your nets, then every boat gets, say, 200 pots each and hauls them three times a day. We have five or six netting boats in our area. That is, say, 600 pots a day per boat. Five boats makes 3,000 pots, so you are on 3,000 pots a day in, say, 3 or 4 sq. miles. They will not work in deep water. That is the trouble. You will have fishing for four or five weeks of the year and that is it.

I want the Marine Institute to answer that too, please.

As Mr. Hennessy said, we have been undertaking trials in the Fenit and Tralee area for the past number of years. We have looked at different pot designs to make them as efficient as possible and to try to increase the catch rate to get as economically viable an income from every pot haul.

We have tried to quantify the value of the catch per pot haul in differently-designed pots. Last year we had some successful trials, as Mr. Hennessy has explained, in certain times of the year. It is important to have good weather in that context. We need to do further work and extend the trials into different conditions, water depths and geographic areas to ensure they work. There are fishermen using pots commercially for crayfish in Ireland. They are not necessarily in the project area we are working in but there are examples where they are used commercially at the moment.

Depth is an issue. When you are dealing with depth, the pots do not work. That is what we are seeing.

We do not know that from the trials.

Okay. I will come back to the Marine Institute on this. Are the proposed grants for selective crayfishing gear enough to aid the NIFA's members? What other supports does the industry generally need going forward?

I do not think you can get grants to get fishing gear.

Nothing.

Nothing. That is because it would increase fishing effort.

Before me I have the Marine Institute report and the opening statement from Trinity College, UCC, etc. I have the most up-to-date aerial Irish sea survey and the report the Marine Institute did into skates and rays, etc. I was delighted to hear Ms Forrest say the Department of agriculture will make recommendations based on scientific data because we have a Marine Institute report that uses the word "possibly" 78 times and on the second page it says "Neither the Marine Institute nor the author accepts any responsibility whatsoever for loss or damage occasioned, or claimed to have been occasioned, in part or in full as a consequence of any person acting or refraining from acting, as a result of a matter contained in this publication", so it does not stand over its own work. We have Trinity College and UCC in their opening statement implying 532 critically-endangered tope sharks were caught. If they had read the Marine Institute's own report, which I have somewhere, tope are an endangered species except in the north-east Atlantic. Why would the Marine Institute set out that tope are critically endangered but then follow by saying they are not in the area surveyed? Tope are not an endangered species in the north-east Atlantic. That is in the Marine Institute report. The most up-to-date Marine Institute report is talking about seal surveys in 2012. The aerial Irish sea survey is from 2024 and says "...the Grey Seal population in Ireland has increased by around 190% ... since 2003". That does not sound like a population in trouble. We have a page from the Marine Institute report into elasmobranch fish in Tralee Bay and the ICES advice on angel sharks is "Any incidental bycatch should not be landed, but returned, to the sea, as they are likely to have a high survival rate". That is from ICES, which is the gold standard for science on fish.

What we as fishermen ask first is to deal with data, not "possibly" or "maybe". Let us get the data first and then all sit around and try to make educated assumptions. We have reports based in part on 2012 when we have 2024 data. We have ICES saying angel sharks have high survivability We have an opening statement saying critically-endangered tope sharks are affected when they are not critically endangered in the area we are talking about. We need to have factual data, not just hearsay and sound bites for whatever reason. Let us start with the data. All the fishermen in the Gallery have provided data but then that data is used by others for whichever gain, but data should be presented as such.

I thank everybody for coming in. On the mortality rate for the crayfish in the Marine Institute report, why is there no mortality rate for endangered species like skate and ray?

We estimate the mortality rate of crayfish by asking fishermen to report what is dead and what is alive in the catch when they bring it on deck. It is less easy to do that for skates, rays and angel sharks. We acknowledge in the report that mortality does not always occur but we do not know the rate of survival post release when those fish are released. We do not assume 100% mortality. We acknowledge there is some survival. We have successfully tagged angel sharks and released them when they have become caught in tangle nets and we show subsequent survival. The problem is that for species like angel shark, the tolerable or sustainable by-catch level is really zero because they are so critically endangered, so there is an unknown there in terms of an ongoing mortality that might be happening due to by-catch in gear like tangle nets. Survivability is probably higher in otter trawls or gear which is towed and hauled quickly but long soak times for tangle nets may result in higher mortality rates.

I thank members very much for the good questions and comments. On the critically-endangered status of tope, they are globally classified in that way. It emphasises the point that Ireland is one of the last remaining strongholds for some of these species. For flapper skate, angel sharks and even for tope we are renowned as a place where you can still find these species that, when you look more broadly, are critically endangered globally. That makes it more important that we protect them here where we can still see them.

On the by-catch mortality, it is an unknown. It is especially difficult to get data from species that are critically endangered because you cannot do experiments with these kinds of animals to look at what their mortality rates are with much accuracy. Looking across species, in lots of different types of net, especially things like gill nets, long soak times can be one of the main factors that cause high mortality rates. The other thing that is really important is an animal surviving on deck when it is being released does not mean it is going to survive subsequently. A lot of these kinds of animals can suffer injuries that might not look like major injuries but they can suffer from infection and diseases caused by catch, so releasing them alive does not mean they are necessarily going to survive. Often mortality happens days and sometimes weeks after capture and it is very difficult to account for that.

Maybe Mr. Dixon will come in on this.

I completely accept what Dr. Payne is saying but at the same time if Ireland is one of the areas where there is still a really good high level of those species, does that not indicate that we have been, and are, doing something right as a fishing industry? If they are disappearing in other parts of the world they would not be here in those kinds of numbers if what we were doing was as detrimental to them as we are half-hearing today. That is a very important point to keep in mind. As I said earlier, we are trying to improve what we do even further and that is a very important point.

I just heard the word "unknown" spoken there. If we can speak about what is known, I participated in this survey from beginning to end. My data is freely available and if anybody wants to see it I will gladly produce it. It is from start to finish and on the soak time, my son is in the Gallery and he can also prove it has zero by-catch. I am not unique in the way I fish. Others in the room do the same. Why does the report not show my data instead of putting it in with all the other data? It makes my data completely irrelevant. That is point number 1. Point number 2, which is extremely close to my heart, is that since this word "ban" has come out - and "ban" is the word I see used; I do not see anything in the line of "management" - this has become a debacle.

I use the word "debacle" because it was a trial by social media. Every fisherman in this room, including men in the Gallery, have been called every name under the sun on social media. Two weeks ago today, I was up to my chest in water, as was my son. We were physically carrying dolphins back into the water. We went away and got a boat and put the dolphins back in the water. By the time we got home, a certain group had posted on Facebook that fishermen were killing dolphins and a ban was needed on tangle nets. That was the very same day we spent four and a half hours walking around in freezing water, and it was not the first day we did that. Fishermen are having to face this trial by media.

I do not want to name any names but I spoke to one individual last Sunday for one hour and 40 minutes. Within half an hour of getting off the phone, there was another post with the word "ban" on social media. This is not fair on fishermen. We would not be having this discussion if fishermen were not in this room. "Management", not "ban", is the word that should be used here. The definition of a ban is where management has failed. Management has not even been discussed here. The only ones talking about management here or pushing for it are fishermen.

Mr. Hennessy spoke about the pot the fishermen are trying to develop. Is there a pot he thinks would work? It seems the fishermen have been pushed into a transition to these pots but if they will not work, what is the point of using them?

I mentioned standard V pots, which work in favourable conditions, in fine weather during the summer. The trouble arises when you take nets out of the equation and just fish using pots. It is a small enough area where you would work the pots. You cannot really work them in deep water. First, you will not be able to keep crew. You are looking at getting four or five weeks of the year in fine weather, so you will end up going fishing on your own and trying to put in 200 pots which are one and a half times the size of a lobster pot. It is dangerous. You cannot leave them out in swell. You have to bring them up to the bay for a bit of shelter. It is not really feasible; it is too dangerous. That is the first point. The second is that that will just not pay. That is the trouble.

One problem with the pot fishery for crayfish that nobody seems to be giving any thought to is that we already have a pot fishery. The whole inshore industry has been squeezed into fishing for crab, lobster and shrimp. Every other opportunity is gone. Now we have a fishery that does not use pots. It uses another form of low-impact gear with a big mesh. It does not kill any juvenile fish, is soft on the seabed and does not cause any damage to the sea-floor, yet that method of fishing is being demonised. If it is banned, the result will be that more operators will be pushed into crab, lobster and shrimp and move effort from one place to another. It will not fix anything. All it will do is relocate effort.

I have a question on the tangle nets. This discussion brings me back 40 years when I handled as many fish as I think anyone ever handled with bare hands, whether it was crayfish or lobster at the time. It is interesting to hear that some say tangle nets are doing damage, while others say they do not and that they fish in a very sustainable way. Of course, management is important. Where are big-eye pots being used? Who is fishing that way? Is that what the fishers are talking about developing now?

That is a fishery I have been part of since before net fishing took off in our area. That net fishery started in the 1970s, around 1979 to 1983, and then it really took off. It started with an old nylon-type net that was covered in tar. It had to be soaked on roofs for 24 hours before it was even handled because of the tar. That progressed to monofilament net.

I am a fourth generation fisherman. My son is the fifth generation and I hope to God he gets the opportunity to continue. Our forefathers used pot fishing. I do not think they were extremely clever fishermen. The wheel does not need to be reinvented here. The fishery is there but, as Mr. O'Donovan pointed out, the guys involved in that fishery are under massive pressure. We have been trying to put forward a management plan for pot fishery for the past four years at this stage. If we are going to put extra effort in, it does not matter what pot type is used. A pot is not specific to crayfish. It will also catch brown crab, spider crab and lobster. That removes fish from the existing fishery, regardless of what fishery is used. Regarding the pot, though, the wheel does not need to be reinvented. The type of pot that was used by our forefathers has been around forever, and they were probably the best fishermen around. They did not have the technology that we have in boats now.

I thank Mr. Moore for the explanation. Can anyone establish what the by-catch of the tangle nets is? Is it skate, rays or angle shark? Are they in the tangle nets? Can it be released? What happens to it?

We are the boat that tagged the two angel sharks. It was the first time that was ever done in Ireland. That was a great thing because it proved we could mind them. One of the tags went off 200 nautical miles offshore. It was a great sign. I have never seen a dead angel shark. Any time we get them in, they are in and out of the boat within two or three minutes and you see them swimming away. I have pictures and videos on my phone. We probably get three or four angel sharks every year and they all go back alive.

Is there a perception about fishing using tangle nets that may not reflect the fact?

Yes.

Is there anyone here who can prove these nets are doing serious damage to endangered species? I come from the west coast, Donegal, and have been involved in fishing for a long time, buying fish from north Mayo up to the very north of Donegal. I also realise there is another endangered species and that is the fishermen themselves. We have to find a balance. The balance in all this is proper management to ensure there is sustainable fishery. It is no good to the fishermen if it is not sustainable. A one-year fishery does not provide funding for them or their families for years. They have to do it from year to year. There are a lot of factors that need to be taken into consideration.

I understand NIFA has management plans ready to go. Hopefully, they will be available to us soon. When they are, will NIFA make sure members or the secretariat are forwarded a copy so that we can educate ourselves more fully as regards the advantages or disadvantages of the proposals?

An independent ecologist was on Radio Kerry a few weeks ago. I rang him and tried to explain our fishery as best I could, telling him the issue is not as black and white as the report said. I offered to take him out on a couple of trips on board my boat. I even told him I would put him up and everything. We have nothing to hide. That is the trouble. We would not be participating in these things if we were guilty of something. I offered to take him out for two or three days, put him up, feed him and the whole shebang to show him. He said he would take me up on the offer.

The data is there. I can only speak from my own side but the data and the proof are there. Proposals have been made by the fishermen with regard to the season. We heard from one fisher that most of the angel shark he caught were in the early part of the year. To close the fishery from December to April would be a massive thing to do. Again, this is coming from fishermen themselves. They are willing to take this. There is a group of 14 here in the room from NIFA. Senator Boyle spoke at the previous meeting of the committee about a young fisherman in Donegal who would not go back fishing the following day. There are four young members of NIFA here, aged from 21 to 30. They are here trying to secure their future. I am not here fighting or arguing for myself and nor is anyone else. Members can see the age of the people who are here. It is for these young people here that we are trying to create a future.

Did Deputy Whitmore want to come back in?

Mr. Menarry wanted to come back in.

I want to give everyone a chance.

I do not think the Leas-Chathaoirleach was here the last time we were here. One of the problems we brought up, and Senator Boyle can attest to this, was that we would not have enough bait for our crab and lobster fishery this year. We will not have bait for crayfish pots. Fishermen have suggested, and the Minister will sign off on, a 10 mm increase in the brown crab landing size for this year. It will reduce our landings by 20%. That is what fishermen have proposed off their own backs. At the moment, we cannot take any more cuts. If people here want to take pressure off the crayfish, it can be done at the stroke of a pen. We have lost access to fisheries and national quota. Give us back what we had and that will immediately take pressure off fisheries. Instead of trying to vilify fishermen and hammer them deeper and harder into the ground, look for solutions.

There are some people - I am not saying they are in the room today - from the more extreme environmental side of things. If there is not a problem and everything is okay, they have nothing to fight for. I believe a lot of this has been sensationalised for others' gain.

I am from an inland country and am learning about fisheries. I take it the tangle net is put out in the water. Does it stand up in the water? Is it on the seabed? Someone mentioned the opening in the mesh is big so it allows the juvenile fish to run through. I take it it is called a tangle net because the lobster comes along and gets tangled up in it. Maybe that is simplistic. It is the bigger species that can get caught in the net. Does the net stand up off the seabed or lie on the seabed? It is not the bag we see being pulled in behind the trawler.

No. It is a length of net. For crayfish in particular, the mesh size can vary. It can go up to 16 in. The mesh normally used is 10.5 in. by 10.5 in. That is quite big. Smaller fish swim through it. At times you will get a pollock and stuff like that because the ground it is used on starts at maybe 30 fathoms and goes up to 3 fathoms. There are 6 ft in each fathom. It is like shooting nets up and down a church steeple. Crayfish predominantly live on the side of cliffs. You target putting a net down in that specific area. A net will stand possibly 3 ft off the bottom. Because we use only a rope as buoyancy for the top part, that enables the net to rise just enough that the height of a crayfish can walk through.

With regard to by-catch, no fisherman gets up in the morning and goes to sea to catch something that is of zero monetary value to him. Life is hard enough and long enough without putting in extra work for something you will not get paid for.

I will come in on conservation objectives and how to help the fishing industry. We have a lot of data showing that, unfortunately, tangle nets are damaging to critically endangered species. There is no safe level of by-catch for those species. I acknowledge what Mr. Moore said. We all know this is accidental by-catch. There is no fisherman going out to catch critically endangered species but these species move around the coasts of Ireland and are moving into the cray fishery ground. That is how they get caught in nets.

Some of the management measures that have been suggested, like limiting the soak time, would be very hard to monitor. That is through no fault of the fishermen, but they might not be able to go out to get the nets if there is unexpected bad weather, for personal reasons or because of health issues. Before you know it, the nets are in the water for a week or more again. Some of my colleagues can speak of the post-mortality rates of sharks and rays. The longer the soak time, the higher the rate of mortality. On seasonal closures, the data in the report was only collected between April and October. Having a closure over winter would not impact the by-catch for the period recorded.

That is why we ask for the nets to be prohibited and for a switch to pot fishing. We know there needs to be continued engagement on this because there are issues around pot fishing as well. This is not a new issue. There was a proposal in 2020 by the Marine Institute to close the cray fishery for three years to allow numbers to replenish, and then to have a wider ban on tangle nets after that. There was the public consultation after that too.

We know the fishermen collected this data. They went out and got it and that needs to be appreciated and remembered. We need all the help we can get and to find out as much as we can about the marine environment. It is all of our natural heritage and all of our responsibility to protect it. If fishing communities have to change fishing methods to protect it, they should absolutely get financial supports in order to do that. There are other measures the Government could take but have not taken yet to support the inshore fishing industry and the environment, like an income support scheme. We would be supportive of that. There are many industries in Ireland that get income support, so why not inshore fishermen, and island fishermen as well, to protect the cultural heritage?

A big issue for the environment and the inshore fleet is the national quota allocation. At the moment, 80% to 90% of the pelagic quota is given to a small handful of bigger boats. The rest of the inshore fleet and island fishing communities are left with a small amount. Some people may say it is all well and good for me to talk about this but I am not a fisherwoman and it does not impact my income. However, it is an environmental and social justice issue as well. The Government should prioritise fair access to opportunities, resources and, in this case, quota for everybody.

It would have huge benefits for the environment. Many tangle net fishermen say if tangle nets were taken off them, they do not have anything else to go into. If they were getting better quota allocation, they would be able to do that and there would not be reliance on certain fishing methods or pressure on certain species. This has been called for for years; it is not a new thing. There were big quota cuts at EU level before Christmas but this is something people have been asking for for a long time. In order to support-----

I am sorry but I am watching the clock. Ms Carr does not come up for air at all.

Sorry, I was just trying to get the points in.

I think Mr. Moore wanted to come in to answer my question.

No, I call Dr. Tully from the Marine Institute.

In reference to what we proposed in December 2020, in that month we published a prior information notice to tender. We had full intention of going to public procurement to procure the services of fishermen for this project. Before doing that, we published the prior information notice, which enabled people to respond to ideas we were going to put in the tender. That is why we did that. We proposed various things in discussion with fishermen. After we collated all of that, we went to public tender, having taken into account what was said in the prior information notice and the submissions to that notice.

I thank Dr. Tully for his brief response. Speaking of income supports, there is a task force and I understand a number of the witnesses' organisations are represented on that. I am sure they will make their case on the task force forum as well as they have done it here.

I welcome all our guests and thank them for their presentations. At pretty much every meeting we hold, we discuss the survival of the fishing industry, coastal communities, fishermen and fisherwomen. Sadly, today is no different. I am glad to hear the words "sustainability" and "management" being mentioned and to hear about working together. Otherwise, the industry will not survive. I think it is black and white.

The importance of data cannot be emphasised strongly enough. Until such time as we get all the factual data, we as a committee cannot make any informed decision.

It is in all our interests that the industry is sustainable. Until we have all the data in front of us, we are going nowhere. I call on all parties to give us the up-to-date data as soon as possible. We will then invite all our guests back in.

NIFA will have a report within the next number of weeks, which I hope will be helpful.

I am listening to what is being said. I sometimes think we are all on the same page in that there needs to be management. We recognise that there is an issue, but then I am not sure if there is recognition that there is a problem. I want confirmation. Do the witnesses recognise that there is a problem with tangle nets or do they think tangle net fishery is fine and there is no issue with by-catch? If that is the case, we are miles apart. What the witnesses are seeing and what is being presented are miles apart.

I would not think it is correct to say that there is an issue with tangle nets. Tangle net fishery mostly needs to be managed. It needs a close season, controlled soak times and a limit on the amount of gear or whatever somebody can work to control the soak times. It is not right to say that there is a problem with tangle nets, especially when it is being looked at it in the context of one report relating to two small bays in the south west and when the same gear is used countrywide for several fisheries. There is turbot, monk and ray. All these fisheries use the same gear. It is wrong to say that there is a problem with tangle nets. You could also say that there is a problem with the by-catch of endangered angel sharks in Tralee Bay. I do not know if I can quite agree with that statement because of all the issues surrounding the data. Guys are not happy with it or with how it was presented. I do not think you could say that there is an issue around tangle nets.

It would be good to dig into this a little more. Mr. Moore spoke about his father and how he, his neighbours and other fishermen were the best fishermen ever, and they all used pots. The traditional fishery for crayfish is a pot fishery. According to the figures, more than twice the number of crayfish were being caught by means of pot fishery in the 1970s before tangle nets came in. Do the witnesses think it would be possible to go back to that? It seemed it was possible. The sustainability of the fisheries was a lot better, not just from an environmental sustainability perspective but also from the point of view of stocks themselves. I know pots are very expensive. If there was a grant towards purchasing them and support, would it be possible to go back to something like that?

Anything is possible if fishermen support it. The reason we are sitting in this room today is partly because of the fishermen. The Deputy used the word "problem" a minute ago. That is a word I do not like. A problem is something that is probably not solvable. Fishermen are sitting here for the reason of trying to solve a problem. The Deputy asked if we could go back to pot fishery. The reason it was so successful in the seventies was because every avenue possible was available to people back then. To protect crayfish, the Department, with the help of the Marine Institute and whoever else, introduced a minimum landing size of 110 mm. For a crayfish to reach 110 mm, it has to weigh 1 kg. If one goes back to the fishery that was there in my father's time, in his father's time and for the generations going back, they had access to everything. You might have had a boat fishing 150 pots and hauling them four times a day. That was a three-month fishery. For the other nine months of the year, he was entitled to fish every other species known to mankind. The problem we have now is that if this committee, the Government or whoever else decided tomorrow morning to ban this fishery on the strength of the report, the fishermen would have no other avenue. It is the only fishery available to these guys. If you take the guys' fishing the nets out of it and tell them they have to enter a pot fishery, they will dump effort into another fishery, make a fishery that already has everybody in it and the numbers will increase.

Setting aside the environmental issues, the species conservation problem and vulnerability of species, I always worry when I hear that there is such an effort relating to and reliance on a single species. Usually, this means that species could be fished out over a number of years. Is that a concern?

If closure in respect of another species and then another keeps happening, that pushes us all the time into the only fishery left, which is a pot fishery. We have been forced into that for the past I do not know how many years. We now have what is virtually a brown crab consultative committee that is trying to deal with that, trying to sort a brown crab fishery. There is an alternative - Mr. O'Donovan said it earlier - in being able to fish tangle nets for crayfish for a certain part of the year. Fishermen are making a huge effort. As Mr. Moore said, looking at a four-month closure in a fishery is a huge effort. There has already been a 20% reduction in the amount of brown crab we are catching. That represents a significant loss of income. Deputy Gallagher spoke about having a task force. It is fine having a task force, but that is only a short-term measure. If you keep taking away the fisheries we have, you are going to get rid of us completely.

The word "data" has been used a number of times. There has been criticism of the way it has been presented. If one looked for a piece of fishery science that had been undertaken in Ireland in the past 20 years that involved and integrated completely the fishing industry into that process, this is the project. Everybody in the room who is a fisherman has been involved in reporting data as part of this project. By-catch estimation is really difficult because it is difficult to encounter rare events and report on them. You have to observe and monitor a lot. That was only possible with the involvement of fishermen in this process. We have had 800 trips over the past couple of years with observation and data that has been reported directly to us by fishermen, and we present in the report. We are fully okay with the idea of estimation and the likelihood after that in terms of trying to estimate the total fleet activity and total fleet by-catch because we have such a high level of reporting from those 800 trips. If one does not like the word extrapolation or estimation, just look at the table. For the 800 trips in the report, that already points to significant problems with by-catch.

I know over a long time some of the frustration and anger of fishermen is that some people who may be independent or who may have represented environmental organisations have used language that is unnecessarily provocative and demonising of fishermen. In the past two sessions at which representatives of environmental groups were present, they did not do that. They have taken a responsible approach. I thought the session on marine protected areas was good, and we could find common ground. Mr. Moore put it most powerfully; it is not in their interest to have by-catch. There is no economic benefit to them from by-catch. They do not want to do it so we need to work on a solution. My mindset today is solution orientated and to find common ground in all of our interests. Mr. Moore talked about that in the work he has done. He reduced the soakage time and, as a result, there was no by-catch. What is Dr. Tully's sense of that? Was there a focus on Mr. Moore's specific case study? Would that feed into the solution in terms of a management plan?

Obviously, Mr. Moore's data have contributed to the report, as have the data from every other fisherman in the room. We could not disaggregate the data and report it for each individual vessel. We want to maintain anonymity, so we have to aggregate. We split the data between the Dingle and Tralee fleets because we knew there were differences in the by-catch profiles and species compositions in the fisheries in those two areas. We did not disaggregate it any further. If we want quantitative information on the effect of soak time on survivability, it requires a specific and different type of study.

Mr. Moore said today he had no by-catch when soak time was reduced. Is that true?

I would have to re-examine his data, but if he says it is true, it is true.

My understanding is that reducing soakage time reduces by-catch. That has been proven time and again internationally. This appears to be an obvious area to focus on. Reduced fishing times seem to be an obvious area to focus on.

I absolutely agree with what was said about the razor clam fishery on the east coast. What is going on with management plans in the Department? I hear repeatedly from inshore fishermen around our coast that they are increasingly being forced into fishing for shellfish predominantly. They are looking for management plans. It is absolutely in their interest to have sustainable fisheries so they can continue to have a livelihood. What is the Department's approach to driving forward management plans with all the stakeholders around the table?

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn. On razor clams and the north-east fishery specifically, there have been a number of iterations of a proposal from the North East Regional Inshore Fisheries Forum, NE RIFF, that would have arisen at NIFF meetings. The current proposal that has been developed originated with the NE RIFF last July. It was shared among the various other regional inshore fisheries forums and it was agreed, through NIFF just before Christmas, to forward it to the Department. The Department received the current version of the proposal on 16 January, I believe. We have already discussed it at a preliminary level at a Department and marine agencies meeting and we plan to discuss it further. It is currently in progress.

I have a supplementary question in relation to quota management. I am thinking of mackerel and herring. The Department is pushing inshore fishermen increasingly towards a narrow set of species, and there will be management problems on an ongoing basis. Is the Department considering the requests the fishermen made for higher quotas for the likes of mackerel and herring to give them options for a sustainable future?

The policy on quota management is as set out and it would be a matter for the Minister to make a decision on any changes to it.

This is a publicly owned resource. It belongs to all of us. The Department must have an opinion on how species quotas should be managed fairly to ensure that inshore fishermen can have a future. If it is just saying the fishermen cannot have this and that, there is an issue.

With regard to the crayfish fishery, what are the vulnerabilities? Are there species attacking the crayfish fishery? I do not get a sense of who is joining up all the pieces to ensure a sustainable future.

I do not have any knowledge of the predation on crayfish. I do not know if the Marine Institute representatives wish to comment.

Maybe the inshore fishermen will answer.

Does anyone have any objections to Deputy Whitmore taking the Chair? If they have, they should stay silent. I thank everyone for their contributions. I am sorry because I have to leave. It was most interesting to hear from all of the witnesses. Everyone was totally genuine in expressing their views. We will decide what we will do, possibly in a private session.

Does Dr. Payne want to contribute?

I had a question that might have been lost because of the change of Chair. It relates to the crayfish fishery. We face the prospect of a reduced season and a reduced soakage time. Are the witnesses aware of other threats to the crayfish species that we also need to be considering?

Regarding the management plan we are proposing, I heard somebody say something a while ago about soak time. Fishermen have pointed out that to control soak time, you need to know the amount of gear you have in the water that is workable with a particular soak time. Somebody stated earlier that weather and such phenomena comprise a major factor. They do. However, the way we use the fishery is such that if the forecast is bad for a particular period, the gear stays in the stern and is not dumped out. Fishermen cannot afford to have gear damaged. It gets damaged by storms, in particular. If a storm comes and gear is left in shallow water, it will be damaged. It is in the fisherman's best interests, therefore, to bring the gear ashore. If you have the correct amount of gear in the water, that in itself helps manage soak time. With respect to telling somebody they can haul their gear, a certain amount of gear takes a certain number of days. Everything here is coming from fishermen. If something is needed, fishermen will not be found wanting.

I will comment quickly on the common ground issue. We must highlight that fishermen are not the problem here. The Irish fishing community is working within a system of insufficient management. They are not just playing by the rules but also engaging very actively in data collection to help us understand the by-catch problem. More than that, they are proposing potential solutions. Stepping outside the context of crayfish, one solution is the recent proposal for income stabilisation. We read it recently and are very supportive of many of the measures. I am referring not only to financial supports but also to the opening up of other fisheries and equity in terms of the quotas of other fisheries. I include species such as bluefin tuna. I work on bluefin tuna. The associated fishery is one of the best managed in the world. The Irish fishing community has been asking for a quota for Ireland for years. My understanding is there has been no progress. I do not understand it. The quota is a very positive thing the Irish fishing community could seek. Our frustration is not with the fishing community, because it is not the problem; it is over the lack of progress by the Government, particularly in supporting a transition to more sustainable practices. The fishermen need to be supported quickly. This has been going on for decades.

To return to Deputy Mac Lochlainn's point on pots and the net differences between them, crayfish are already on spiky ground. The areas are quite small. No more than a couple of short strings of nets are used to target the crayfish. That is all. You cannot fish with pots. Pots are set ten to 12 fathoms apart. If everyone here fished for crayfish tomorrow with pots in the same small area, there would be bedlam. It would be very hard to do it. It is very easy when there are small amounts of net. You target the area, pick out where you want, and shoot your gear there. You cannot do that with pots. You will saturate the area if you try to do it with pots. That is a fact.

I apologise as I have to go to the same meeting as Deputy Gallagher. It is with the Minster for Transport and it is on Donegal cancer flights. I am very sorry that I have to leave.

That is no problem. It is just me and Deputy Maxwell now. We will hear from Dr. Haberlin and then we will come back to Mr. Moore.

It struck me all morning that this is probably the most data we have for ranger shark in Ireland at the moment. It has come via by-catch data. In one sense, it is almost welcome that there may be more ranger shark than we thought, but obviously there is a massive downside.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn was talking about by-catch. We have very good data on by-catch mortality globally from tangle nets, gill nets and other gear – for instance, from Beach Protection Australia. There are massive differences across species. They are not all the same.

The classic fusiform shark, like the tope, for instance, is a lot more vulnerable than some of the benthic species, which will survive for longer. However, even species like the thornback ray and cuckoo ray are largely of similar size, with a similar life history, but have vastly different post-release survival reates. What we are missing is data on some of these. It has already been referred to, but we just do not have that post-release survival information for the angel shark and flapper skate. A lot of the information we do have on these species is based on fisheries independent surveys and fisheries data. That does not necessarily cover the entire coastline very well. The flapper skate is something I could maybe speak a bit more on because we are studying that species along the south coast, in particular in Courtmacsherry Bay, where we have a great relationship with the local community, including the fishing community. They are very invested in the project. I would go so far as to say there is an element of co-creation there. Again, it is not tangle netting; it is sunken netting. They do not want to catch flapper skate either. However, this conversation has very much been about the south west of Ireland, and there is a massive effort now in tangle netting all along the south coast as well. If I read the report correctly, there is almost the same quantity as is coming into Dingle and Tralee. That is a really important habitat for the flapper skate.

We are talking a lot about having the fishermen adopt different measures. A key missing point here is understanding the animals' actual ecology, that is, where they go, how long they spend there and their residency times. These are things we need to understand to help manage our activities. If we do not understand those first, it is very hard to come up with good solutions.

I thank Mr. Haberlin.

I just want to raise a point I forgot to make when the Deputy was asking about the actual fisheries then versus now. One of the main problems we have had here as fishermen is that we have been too trustworthy. We accepted that there was an issue with the salmon fishery 20-odd years ago. We were told that it would be reviewed in ten years' time. It is 23 years on, and we are still waiting for a review, and we are still waiting for somebody to say that fishermen were not the problem here. We were blamed back then for a problem with the salmon fishery and here we are, 23 years later, and nobody seems to give a whistler as to the fact that the fishermen are excluded from taking part in another fishery. That is probably one of the key issues there. I was happy to hear what the man sitting behind me said as well. A key part of this moving forward is funding. The Deputy made that point a little earlier. She made a point in the last year or so as well as to the importance of fishermen to rural Ireland. I thought it was a very good point to put forward. I do not think we actually realise ourselves how important we are to rural Ireland. I think the point the Deputy made was that when tourists come in to see fishermen, they see their importance to rural Ireland. I believe this whole issue can be resolved quite quickly if people are prepared to sit down in a room or wherever they want to go and discuss this. They will find that fishermen will not be found wanting.

I thank Mr. Moore very much. Deputy Maxwell has indicated. Mr. Menarry wants to come in. Is the Deputy raising a different issue?

No, it is on this topic.

Members asked if there is a problem with the crayfish fishery. There is not a problem with the crayfish fishery, in my opinion. We have the largest crayfish size in Europe. To answer the question, no, there is not a problem. Could we do it better? Absolutely; anything can be done better. That is just one point.

On another point, when we talk about the unknowns around angel sharks, that was one of three I caught in one day where I fish. I have told Dr. Tully about it before in the past when he asked me where I caught them. I will not say where I caught them. Three were released alive. There is no issue. They are fine where they are. They do not need protection. There is big mistrust, and there is going to be a bigger mistrust going forward between fishermen and scientists. As Dr. Tully will attest, I cover a massive area, so he is not going to know where I caught them. They do not need protection because there is very little fishing effort in that area. However, how do I then say how I get that data? We see on the telly, when people get arrested in America, that anything they say can and will be used against them. If I say that I know where there is a load of them, people will come in and impose a blanket ban and cover everything when the fish are quite happy were they are. It is like when we see new roads getting built and then the next thing is that a snail or a flower is discovered. Those things are all over the place. It is just that when they happen to be found in one individual place, they have to be protected and everything else changes. I am sure they are endangered and everything else, but the data on them is limited and it is only based on what fishermen are providing and people therefore think the fishermen are catching them all, and I do not think that is correct. I saw one survey online where one was tagged in Tralee Bay and was recaptured in the Bay of Biscay. How many tangle nets are fished off the west coast of Ireland by other EU vessels along the habitat of these endangered species? As we often see - we see it with the mackerel this year - it is always the Irish fishermen who have to suffer for the so-called protection of a species when we do not even know if it is the Irish fishermen who are causing the problem,

I thank Mr. Menarry. I will go to Deputy Maxwell now if he wants to ask another question.

We are not 100 miles apart here. Fishermen want to do what they have been doing for generations, that is, go out and make a living, but make it in a sustainable way. I do not know a fisherman who would say we should just fish it all now in the next three or four years and take what we can and forget about it. The fishermen have come up with eight alternatives.This question is for the Department people and the people sitting along the top row. There is the defined seasonal fishery, V-notching of the berried crayfish, controlled soak times, reduced fishing effort, development of pot fishery gear modification, continuing onboard monitoring and targeting funding to fishermen. Are there any with which the people sitting along the top row do not agree? Can we as a committee work with those and bring them up the line to see whether we can work over the next couple of years on what the fishermen have come up with to try to make this more sustainable? Are any of those parts acceptable, or what is the view on those eight suggestions the fishermen have brought forward?

I can make a few points on some issues. Specifically around the critically endangered species, I did already make the point that they cannot withstand any level of by-catch. Unfortunately, with reducing soak times and stuff, that would be great, but it will be very hard to manage that and make sure that occurs in all these areas. How would it be managed and monitored and made sure soak times were kept at a low level? Then, with spatial closures as well, there are already closures to tangle nets within Tralee Bay, but all the catches of angel sharks happened outside of this area. It is the same with the flapper skate. They are moving around and, unfortunately, they do cross over into the crayfish fishing grounds. My real concern is really these critically endangered species and how they can be protected. I do not think that any of these management measures sufficiently address that. The V-notching is a great management measure to help make sure the crayfish fishery is sustainable, but I am not sure how these measures would help with the critically endangered species.

Okay. That is one.

The proposing of solutions is really helpful. On the winter closure, a concern would be what level of by-catch that will effectively militate against. I do not have data on the fishing effort through winter. I do not have data on by-catch rates during winter. The reports show that for by-catch, almost 100% of catches are between April and, say, November, so that is the period of concern we have in front of us in terms of evidence. If there is the same amount of fishing effort and the same amount of by-catch over the winter, then a winter closure would be great, but I just do not have those data, so maybe this is another discussion.

It is really positive that there are eight proposals on the table and that we do not have a blank sheet here. However, each of those needs to be discussed in much greater detail with the industry. There are nuances in contexts and feasibility. All of that has to be discussed in each of those measures.

I will just go back to Ms Carr's point. Any type of management that you bring in to enforce it is always going to be important. Sometimes, the best people to enforce any management are the fishermen themselves. If there is something we are all abiding by, then everybody does that. Without the buy-in of the industry, that is going to be almost impossible. However, if there is buy-in from us, it is always doable.

In response to the point on the eight measures, we have not seen those yet. They would come in to us and then go for discussion at the Department and agencies' interim group, to which Ms O'Donovan referred earlier. We get the technical from BIM, the scientific input from MI and if there are control issues, we get input from the SFPA. We would welcome them, and could review them.

There is a huge elephant in the room that no one is touching. All of the people in the Gallery I have spoken to disagree with the data. I did not take part in this survey, but I have been fishing my entire life. I fished an 18 m boat with tangle nets for turbot and monk, and that is what we got - turbot, monk and maybe the odd skate. When I fished for crayfish in an 11 m boat, we shot in peaks, and we got the odd pollack with the crayfish. We did not see all of this skate, but if you moved to the sand, then you would catch skate, flappers and whatever else was there.

As one of my colleagues pointed out to me this morning, the estimate for angel shark in 2021 was zero, but the estimate in 2022 was 56. How is that? Can anyone explain that?

The season has an impact. Three quarters of the angel shark that we ever caught were caught in March, so the season would get rid of a lot of this if it was closed until April.

There are mixed reviews from the top bench on these proposals. Ms Forrest said she had not seen the proposals as they are brand-new. Before we make any decision, we ask the Department to look at these proposals. There are eight proposals. I am sure that when they are looked into, some might not be workable, and that is how it is with everything. However, let us try to work with the fishermen. They came up with the proposals, and maybe there are more that they can come up with. Let us try to work with them to protect the species, ensure there is no by-catch and see if we can arrive at a sustainable solution. There is no point in us sitting here and saying that this or that is not going to work without looking at it.

Both sides need to go away and spend a couple of months on this. If someone says that we do not have a couple of months and that it is time-critical, it has been going on for the last generation, so I am sure another six months is not going to make a massive difference. Let us work together to see if we can come up with something. I propose that we come back here in six months. If we cannot reach agreement, at least we have gone that far. That would give Ms Forrest and her team a chance to look at these proposals. The fishermen are telling her that they want to work with the Department, and they want to try to deliver. Some of the proposals might be unworkable. I am not a fisherman. Ms Forrest might come back and say it is unworkable, and that is fair enough. However, let us try to work together in the next six months to see if we can arrive at a consensus that gives the fishermen a livelihood, but also protects the critically endangered species that need to be protected and other fish.

I propose that we give both sides six months to come back, and that we reassemble here to see if we can agree something. Sometimes, no side has a solution, but the fishermen have come here with solutions. Let us work to see if we can make them deliver.

Is Ms Forrest okay with reconvening in six months? The Department might provide us with information on any proposals on the table. Is there wider consultation as part of this?

Do we need six months? It might be four months. The Department can let us know. I just picked six months at random.

We will have to see what is involved and the level of input that we would need. If there are to be policy changes, it would have to go to consultation. It takes a bit of time.

Four months seems to be a good compromise, and it will bring that little bit of urgency to it.

Four months would mean either July or September because we are in recess in August. Let us pick July, or do others want to go for September?

We will see what we can get done.

I propose a provisional date in July.

We can certainly come back and state where we are in July. That is no problem.

The data in the report is as per the data reported to us by fishermen and by scientific observers on board the vessels.

There was an estimate of zero for 2021, but the estimate for 2022 was 56. Where did that estimate come from? How could something go from zero to 56? That is what I cannot get my head around.

By-catch events are rare, and there is a chance element, especially for species like angel shark, which are in extremely low numbers. You can get zero, and in another year, you can get something else.

What changed from 2021 to 2022? If the estimate was zero in 2021, what changed to make the Marine Institute estimate 56 in 2022? I cannot get my head around that.

Does Mr. Desmond mean that we got zero reported to us in 2022?

Were angel shark targeted as part of the tag?

No.

Was the second study much more extensive?

The study from 2021 to 2024 involved direct observation of 800 fishing trips. That is where the numbers come from. Above and beyond that, there is the estimated total fleet-wide catch. The estimates are estimates. The observed data is the observed data.

That is based on what was actually caught - the observed data at that point.

It seems strange, if they are that scarce, that there were no angel sharks in 2021 but a lot of them were caught in 2022. The creature is critically endangered and they were not expecting to see any of them, and then the following year, it is a case of “Look at them all now.” Did something cause that?

Maybe it was the tides or something. I am not sure.

There is always huge variation. I am sure I do not have to tell the fishing community that there is variation in all species fished. For the angel shark, unfortunately, we do not know a lot about its ecology, and a lot of what we do know is based on the Pacific angel shark. In the north-east Atlantic, there are only small remnant populations. It is possible, as Dr. Tully said, on the basis of pure chance, that you would get a small number of individuals in one year and none in another year. It could also depend on whether there were slight changes in the fishing effort. There are so many confounding factors that it is very hard to come up with a good answer, unfortunately. There is always natural variation. These are quite small numbers, and it does not surprise me to see them, as an ecologist. Maybe that is not a very satisfying answer, but it is probably the best one we have.

It is not as if we found hundreds of them the following year. We still only found a very low number. It is not that surprising, really. The estimate for the overall level of depletion of angel shark in Irish waters has been in excess of 95% in last 50 years. It is really depleted.

A lot of these animals aggregate in groups. There is some thought that angel sharks in Tralee Bay are aggregating for mating. That would often see figures of zero, zero and zero, and then a lot because they have come together to reproduce. Patchiness in these kinds of animals is common.

I will have to close the meeting.

I have one question. There seems to be a lot of focus on the angel shark. I do not want to put words into anybody's mouth, but from the critically endangered species side, one death is too many.

Could I just ask one question? Do seals eat angel sharks? We have a large number of seals right next to a bay that has a population of angel sharks. Is it possible seals eat angel sharks? Do angel sharks need protection from seals?

Data from the fisheries board - IFI now - looked at a recreational catch and release programme involving angel sharks over 50 or 60 years. It was based around Tralee Bay. Catches are now at less than 10% of what was being captured back then, so the population decline of angel sharks has probably been 90%.

Seals have increased by 100%, while angel sharks have decreased-----

Not in the Blaskets, though.

It is probably 200% in the Blaskets.

In the Blaskets, the results show the population was being impacted severely.

Talk to the National Parks and Wildlife Service this week.

In the 2009-2012 survey, there was an 80% increase in the Blasket Islands. That is actual data for pups.

Dr. Tully can respond very quickly. Then we have to close because I have gone over.

The population of seals in the Blasket Islands is increasing - you can see that - but it is not a closed population. There is migration into the Blasket Island population from France and Britain. It is an open population. Our risk assessment in 2016 said if we had that by-catch in a closed population, the population would be at risk. It is not closed. It is open but it is relying on-----

Could seals eat angel sharks? We have seen an increase in the seals and a decrease in angel sharks in a small area.

We are going to finish.

That is fine.

I thank everyone for coming in. It was a very interesting conversation. I think and hope there is a pathway for everyone to work together and come up with a solution. It is important we get this addressed. It has been an issue for far too long and I want to see some level of resolution.

Will it be coming back before the committee?

It will be coming back.

That is all I wanted to know. Thank you.

As there are no further matters for discussion, the joint committee stands adjourned until 3 March. The select committee will meet tomorrow, 25 February, at 6.30 p.m.