A major review of the Irish seafood industry to be published tomorrow is expected to propose the investment of over €300 million of taxpayers' money in sea fisheries and aquaculture over the next seven years as part of the National Development Plan (NDP) in addition to money being invested by the private sector.
The review, carried out by a three-man team chaired by Noel Cawley, with Joey Murrin and Ruan Ó Bric, provided the basis for the Marine and Costal Communities Programme in the NDP.
The key elements of the report are expected to be a new scheme of financial incentives for fishermen to decommission trawlers in light of declining stocks and a much greater emphasis on aquaculture as a means of providing for the ever-growing demand for seafood products.
At present the Irish seafood industry generates over €700 million a year and provides for direct employment of about 11,665 people. The total catch in Irish waters, which are among the most productive in the EU, was about 700,000 tonnes of fish in 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available. Most of that catch was taken by non-Irish vessels and, more significantly, over 75 per cent of the stocks are now outside the safe biological limits with either low stock size or unsustainable levels of exploitation.
The problems the authors of the report were asked to analyse were the poor state of the seafood processing industry, the need for a more innovative market-focused strategy to maximise value, the significant imbalance between the declining level of fish stocks and the size of the trawler fleet.
Public funding of €334 million was earmarked for the industry in the NDP in order to implement the group's recommendations in response to the problems already identified. It is hoped that another €250 million will be invested by the private sector leading to an overall investment of nearly €600 million over the next seven years.
Significant State financial support for marketing to ensure that Irish seafood could be sold under its own brand, like Irish butter or beef, is a key element of the NDP proposals as a way of developing new markets for fresh and pro-cessed fish. The need for significant private investment in the seafood processing industry is another concern.
The authors of the report were also asked to examine how the Irish fishing fleet should be restructured in order to eliminate the imbalance between the available fish stocks and catching capacity. It is expected to outline a new scheme of incentives for decommissioning trawlers.
The aquaculture sector is a major focus of the report as it already contributes close to 40 per cent of the revenue generated by the seafood industry but it lags well behind worldwide trends in the procedures used to farm fish and in the range of species that are being farmed.