Northern Ireland Affairs Committee 

Oral evidence: Brexit and Northern Ireland: Fisheries, HC 878

Thursday 14 June 2018, Newtownards

Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 June 2018.

Watch the meeting 

Members present: Dr Andrew Murrison (Chair); Mr Robert Goodwill; Kate Hoey; Ian Paisley; Jim Shannon.

Questions 320-397

Witnesses

Pat Close, Chairman and CEO, Lough Neagh Fishermen’s Co-operative; Sharon McMahon, Designated Officer, Loughs Agency; Jimmy Kelly, Fisherman; and Andrew Orr, Fisherman.

Written evidence from witnesses:

– Lough Neagh Fishermen’s Co-operative Society Ltd.

Examination of Witnesses

Witnesses: Pat Close, Sharon McMahon, Jimmy Kelly and Andrew Orr.

Q320       Chair: Good afternoon, lady and gentlemen. Thank you for coming this afternoon. We are really grateful for your time. I am sorry if this is slightly intimidatory; it is not meant to be. The purpose of this session is to gather evidence for our report that we are writing on fisheries in a Brexit context.

The future after 29 March is certainly exciting for the sector, but also potentially offers some challenges. It is those that we would particularly like to explore with you this afternoon, the better to inform the report that we will produce that ultimately will land up on Ministers’ desks and be debated in the House of Commons.

Can I ask you to very briefly introduce yourselves and say where you are from? Perhaps you could very briefly say what you think the prospects are for Brexit for your sector and also a little bit about where you think the threats may lie. Sharon, can we start with you?

Sharon McMahon: My name is Sharon McMahon. I am the Designated Officer currently for the Loughs Agency, which is, as you are aware, a cross-border body set up under the Good Friday agreement. The Loughs Agency predecessor was the Foyle Fisheries Commission, which was established in 1952. We were there pre-EU and pre the Good Friday agreement. The Good Friday agreement strengthened the Foyle Fisheries Act, which allows us to manage on a cross-border basis. We have been funded 50:50 since 1952 by the two Governments to manage Lough Foyle and, since the Good Friday agreement, Carlingford Lough as well.

We do not see any difficulties for us with Brexit. We have our laws and we will continue to manage as we have done since 1952. We have the powers to enforce legislation on both sides of the border, so if there is a pollution, if anything happens in Lifford and you live in Strabane, we can prosecute by domicile even though the offence has happened technically in another country. Those laws will still remain in place after Brexit.

The threat for us possibly is the environmental rights when the diversion starts. If it happens, I know that the UK has committed, with the Great Repeal Bill, that all EU laws will then be domestic law, but even so we are currently working with organisations in Ireland, Northern Ireland and the UK to establish best practice in fisheries management, as we have done since 1952. We also have established links internationally, for example with NASCO, the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, of which we are a member and we attend with both the Irish and the British delegations. We are working on the positives of Brexit. We are trying to move things forward.

I suppose one thing would be: if the funding goes, where do we go? We are funded 50:50 and our core budget and our core remit will still continue. The funding from Europe always enhanced and was an additional source of money to help us deliver our core objectives. We have done several tourism projects very successfully. We delivered the Ark building and Benone Beach and the Foyle Marina at the back of the Guildhall in Derry-Londonderry and we also do considerable work on Malin Head.

I think we had £6,000 or £7,000 of funding that allowed us to work with Scotland, Glasgow University, and Queen’s where we got seven years of research in three years. We put through 17 PhDs and 20 Masters’ degrees. That was all from Europe. That money allowed us to do that and we will miss that if it goes, but we are being positive. We are out looking for other sources of funding. Yesterday we were talking to the Prince’s Trust. We are working with Co-operation Ireland and we are looking at Heritage Lottery money, so we are being positive and getting out there.

Pat Close: Thank you very much for the opportunity. I represent Lough Neagh Fishermen’s Co-operative. I am possibly not at odds but my views are somewhat different to those taken by my co-panellists here insofar as we are not connected with marine fisheries. It is an inland fishery and I would assess that probably the majority of our fishermen actually voted to stay within the EU. Hopefully, in the next couple of minutes I can explain why that would be. It is a slightly different view from what the others might have.

Brexit made changes for everyone down to the level of trade and doing business in terms of exports and so on. We will have to face those same issues alongside everyone else, but in addition to that we have an extra hurdle. I should say at the outset that while I represent the fishermen of Lough Neagh, I have never been a fisherman myself but I have been involved with the co-operative for 30 years.

The issue for us is related to the fact that the European eel is listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. As a result of Brexit or consequential to Brexit, there will be major issues to be resolved to facilitate Lough Neagh in the continuance of export or any sort of trade in eels—either in juvenile eels that we import for supplementary stocking purposes or in the export of live eels or eel meat to European countries.

Perhaps I should put that in context by explaining that Lough Neagh is home to the largest wild eel fishery in Europe. Lough Neagh is the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles. It is renowned for its eel industry. The co-operative’s involvement with that extends back over 50 years now. The co-operative was established in 1965. Prior to that, ownership of the fishing rights on Lough Neagh was contested on many occasions over the last 100 years or more—most famously back in 1911, when a case went all the way to the House of Lords and basically upheld the ownership rights that could be traced back to Charles II in 1661. There has been a quite troubled history of ownership of Lough Neagh, but we are where we are now.

In the past 50 years, the co-operative has been responsible for the management of the eel industry in Lough Neagh and has been quite successful at that; now things look to be becoming very difficult for us. Referring back to the impact of Brexit in relation to CITES, so far as we can discern at this point the minimum that we will be required to produce is what is known as a non-detriment finding, an NDF, which is effectively a licence to allow us to continue to trade in eels. That decision will be made with the help of scientific research review groups, European scientists.

The relevance of that within the context of Lough Neagh is that we are dealing here with a species that is described as panmictic in that it is a single stock found all throughout Europe. When there is an impact in one region, that is likely to have a knock-on effect in others and that becomes an issue. Within Europe now we are required to meet the requirements of what is known as an eel management plan and all river basin districts throughout Europe that have an eel fishery are required to have an approved plan and to remain compliant with it.

I should stress that when these plans were introduced back in 2010 on the back of EC regulation 1100 in 2007, it is fair to say that the fishermen on Lough Neagh did not notice a great deal of difference as a result. I will explain to you very briefly why that may be. Under the management of the co-operative, the eel fishermen on Lough Neagh had agreed many decades ago to self-regulate to the extent that they had always a very keen eye to conservation and proper management of their fishery. I am speaking of such issues as a cap on the number of licences, for example, a daily quota that was unheard of for the eel industry across Europe, and a whole raft of other conservation measures.

Whenever this was under discussion in Brussels, the regime, if you like to call it that, on Lough Neagh or the means by which they managed the fishery was held up as a model of good practice to the extent that many of the measures that we had made in the previous 40, 50 years were being promoted as something that other river basin districts should adopt, and basically that was the case. The other side of that particular coin was that because this was what was being asked of all fisheries, because the fishermen and the co-operative on the Lough Neagh were already doing that, there was no noticeable impact.

Post-Brexit, this non-detriment finding is likely to prove a very serious issue. For example, we understand now that come 29 March if CITES decides that it cannot afford to issue an NDF, that stops as suddenly as that. It is a cliff edge for us and that is a whole huge concern. Currently about 80% are exported, primarily to Holland, and some of those will in turn be forwarded into northern Germany and Belgium. There is no local trade for eels within the island of Ireland or the UK.

Q321       Chair: The rest would go through Billingsgate?

Pat Close: Approximately 20% of our total throughput goes into Billingsgate for the jellied eel trade. It is a very traditional trade particularly, as I understand it, in the east end of London, but the vast majority of our fish are exported to Holland. I have referred to the NDF that we, as an exporter, would have to produce. We are also told that our customers and clients within mainland Europe would have to prepare and have approved a similar document to allow them to import from us. The essence of those two documents is to show that by continuing in that trade neither party is having a further detrimental impact on the stocks of eels within European waters.

Q322       Ian Paisley: It isn’t rocket science. It is bureaucracy, necessary bureaucracy to a large degree, but it is common practice with all our products across the world.

Pat Close: My concern with it is that we are not being advised of, for example, what an NDF should contain, what it looks like, what we need to prove to make that workable. My understanding is that the NDF—

Q323       Ian Paisley: I understand you want to have certainty and it looks uncertain. A lot of this stuff all sounds to me like the millennium bug thing where we have been told there is going to be a huge big problem and that does not materialise in real life.

I think it is up to the Department to give you what it should look like and whether there are some impediments to you receiving that at the moment, but I think you need to get that better advice. The problem or the black hole that is there is largely a figment. I don’t think it is going to be like that.

Pat Close: I am sorry but I am going to disagree with you on that. I have attended meetings in Brussels in association with the Department and also scientific representatives. We have met CITES representatives and all of these people on a few occasions now and I don’t think anybody, including the Department, is clear about whether an NDF is even possible.

Q324       Chair: As I understand it, the issue with eels is that you can exchange these creatures within a particular recognised bloc, which clearly the European Union is, but if you are exchanging them between what would be characterised as a third party and the European Union being the bloc, that requires the certification that you have described. Is that right?

Pat Close: That is correct, because effectively since 2010 the eel management plans that have been approved throughout Europe are the basis or effectively a licence to trade in eels within the EU.

Q325       Chair: What makes this different from the Canadian experience, of course, is that we are dealing with a potentially fractious period in which the European Union may not necessarily be co-operative on a number of what will be seen as relatively small areas of trade, commercial discourse in the immediate Brexit period and I suppose—

Mr Robert Goodwill: It is the role of CITES to list endangered species.

Chair: Yes, it is, that is the problem. That is why we have to have this bloc arrangement. Would that be right?

Pat Close: Yes.

Chair: I suspect that is probably where your concerns lie.

Pat Close: That is where the concern lies. The EU as an entity itself is a signatory to CITES but so, too, is the UK.

Q326       Jim Shannon: Do other provisions offer any help and succour perhaps on where we are?

Pat Close: Effectively it operates as a protected third name as such. It does recognise the authenticity and the connection with the local geographical region and with the traditions and the expertise of a fishing community. They have held that since 2011. It is more of a unique selling point in many ways rather than something that we can rely on to make changes.

The point I would like to stress here—and I think this is a position of strength for the UK Government—is that not only are we the largest wild eel fishery in Europe but we have a proven track record as a net contributor to the species across Europe. We have been able to draw down funds, for example, under the old EFF, now the EMFF, for restocking purposes. You may be aware that—

Q327       Chair: Can I interrupt you? We are going to come back to eels in a minute. I am going to work along the table to Andrew and Jimmy and you can be clear, quite certain, that we are going to be coming back to eels very shortly. Andrew, can I pass over to you?

Andrew Orr: I am Andrew Orr. I am a skipper of a fishing boat and a partner with my two brothers who own a couple of smaller boats. We are just hoping that if Brexit is done properly that will be good for the fishing, that we should get more quotas and bring more benefit back to our community.

We would like to bring more fish back to our factories and we would like to build the whole industry back up to what it used to be. We are hoping that if it is done properly it will be good and I think it is up to politicians to do it right for us. We are there to take advantage of it when it is done but it should be good for the fishing, for the fishing boats.

Q328       Kate Hoey: Andrew, where do you fish? How far out do you go?

Andrew Orr: We fish mackerel up round Scotland and the Shetlands. It has mostly been in British waters. We have very seldom been out of British waters, the way the fish is swimming at the moment, so we fish Irish Sea herrings. It is all in British waters that we fish.

Q329       Kate Hoey: You are not allowed to go into Irish Republic waters?

Andrew Orr: We are not allowed inside the 12-mile limit due to our size and now our smaller boats are not allowed inside their 6-mile limit. There used to be a gentlemen’s agreement, the voisinage agreement, and it has been—I had a small boat and I had to sell it because we could not fish down there. A lot of young, smaller boats are under pressure because of the voisinage.

Q330       Kate Hoey: We had the Fisheries Minister give evidence to the Committee on this and raised it with him. Do you think the UK Government should be being tougher on this?

Andrew Orr: Absolutely. The British Government have not said a word about the voisinage agreement to my knowledge. They are talking about a hard border. We have a hard border. It is there.

Jim Shannon: To be fair, they have and last week I had a question to George Eustice on the voisinage agreement. It is something we bring up with them all the time. Don’t think it has been forgotten about, because it has not.

Q331       Kate Hoey: The Minister responded to us quite openly that they were going to be perhaps having to get tougher.

Andrew Orr: The small boats can’t fish, the lobster boats, the crabs, the prawns. It is a very difficult thing for them at the moment.

Q332       Kate Hoey: A reciprocal agreement is not reciprocal if the two sides are not doing it, therefore surely automatically it should be not happening.

Andrew Orr: To my knowledge, we are not restricting any Irish boats from fishing in our waters.

Q333       Chair: I am sure we are going to come back to that. Finally, Jimmy, you are at the other end of the scale, I think, because you are the skipper of a relatively small fishing boat.

Jimmy Kelly: It is a 7-metre crab vessel, but at the moment I am targeting whelks because of the seasonal fishing with the lobster and crab, and the crab returning later in the year. If it was not for the whelk fishery, the small boats this year would have had a very poor year.

Some are finding it extremely tough especially, as Andrew has been saying, in Kilkeel where basically half their traditional fishing area has been taken from them. Basically, that means that the ports that they would have been putting up along the coast is now on the County Down shore, which is creating possibly a bit of a tight squeeze in places.

The inshore sector as a whole, the under-10-metre, since devolution—prior to devolution there was a quota where we could have diversified to mackerel or whatever the case might be. There was a tonnage there that could have been divided fairly among the small boats that gave you a living. Since devolution we are down to about 50 kilos for each species. You can’t make a living out of that. Northern Ireland, up to recent years, had no small vessels, we had no track record, so when devolution took place what was the quota in the UK pool disappeared from us and left us no option but to concentrate on shellfish of some description. It is impossible.

I have left the industry commercially for about 20 years and I can’t come back. It was not possible for me to finance a vessel and a licence and get a quota to fish. I would have needed over £500,000. What bank is going to give that to you after the experiences they have had in the past? Going to the crab fishery was the only option left to me.

Chair: Thank you. That certainly ties in with some of the stuff we have been hearing about this morning. I am going to start off by asking our host for the day, Jim Shannon, whose lovely constituency this is—and I will just say in passing thank you also to everybody who has made this evidence-gathering session possible. We are most grateful to them but particularly to Jim for his hospitality. Over to you, Jim.

Q334       Jim Shannon: Thank you very much, Mr Chairman. It is always a pleasure to bring people to the most beautiful constituency in the whole of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I am greatly encouraged that you all think the same as I do now.

I have a couple of questions and I will start with James and Andrew. Today we have had a chance to visit Portavogie. We understand the key issues of crew, quota and the voisinage agreement—I tell you right now, Andrew, that we have not forgotten about that.

The Minister, George Eustice, has not forgotten about that, I will be very clear, but we push him on that all the time and he comes back. The United Kingdom Government are going to assert themselves in relation to that legally as part of the process of where we are moving to. Don’t think we have forgotten about that.

But when it comes to the future of the 10-metre boats, we had a chance to go on one of those today on the harbour and he has put a fairly big investment into what he has there. Could you explain to the Committee what the issues are for the 10-metre boats as against the bigger ones? Just to give you a heads up on the quota issue: Brexit, extra quota?

Jimmy Kelly: We are hoping. I think there is an article in today’s Times saying that about 60% of the UK quota is in foreign ownership or care at the minute. As some of you know, I have been deep sea for a number of years recently: west of the Clair oilfield west of Shetland, along the continental ridge in UK waters, all you see is foreign vessels, with the exception of maybe Andrew and them at times. If you look at the radar it is Portuguese, Spanish, Faroes, Norwegian in our waters taking our fish. If you go around Donegal and speak to the Killybegs, they are tied up with no quota but yet the Dutch and the Portuguese are fishing 12 miles off the shore. Something needs to change.

Q335       Jim Shannon: In your opinion, being dependent upon fishing for your family’s livelihood, do you see Brexit, if done correctly, as an opportunity?

Andrew Orr: A great opportunity if properly managed and I would say the general opinion about the British Isles as a whole, both north and south, all quota brought back into the pot. The POs here in the north have done a great job monitoring the quota. They have kept the Northern Ireland fleet fishing when some other POs have none left.

Over time, the fleet as it stands at the minute—you have seen Portavogie this morning—has relied on second-hand vessels that have used their lifespan in the North Sea to come to the north. A lot of those vessels were scrapped by the banks and instead of the boats that were eligible to be scrapped being put into some secure harbour, we could have taken a fresher boat and scrapped an older boat in Northern Ireland. The good boats that should have come to Northern Ireland or were available to come are no longer. It is impossible, with the rare exception of somebody who has access to £3 million or £4 million, to build a new 24-metre trawler here in Northern Ireland. You could not fund it or pay it.

Q336       Jim Shannon: You would be very hopeful with Brexit and having control of your own waters again that off that come the quotas. You are not going to be tied to the shore so many days a year when you can’t go out—

Andrew Orr: You would have more opportunity and hopefully the banks would see that opportunity and back you.

Jimmy Kelly: I think what you say is important. That small boat I spoke about: when I bought it 10 years ago we were outwith devolution so we had the same quota as the English, the Welsh, the Scots. About a year later it was devolution and then we had a very small quota of white fish. If we could get that back, at least our little boats can diversify from the crabs and the prawns and do something else.

Q337       Mr Robert Goodwill: You made the point that there is a lot of Spanish and Portuguese vessels fishing in British waters. Are they skippers who have bought quota from British vessels that have sold it to them?

Jimmy Kelly: I personally couldn’t answer that. I am not into the—

Andrew Orr: If they are British registered, they have done. If they are British-flagged ships, they will have done, but the Spanish ones are on their own quotas.

Jimmy Kelly: In recent months, I am led to believe that there has been a lot of foreign investment into the UK quota for the fear of Brexit. That is why I would like to see whoever is in control of the fishing take the ownership of the quota, but that must be—

Andrew Orr: It makes it very difficult for local people to buy the quota because there are big corporations buying up the quota from outside the UK. The UK makes it very difficult for ordinary people to get a stake.

Q338       Jim Shannon: I think you need to be assured, and this Committee and a number of us want to assure you, that we are taking back control of fishing and we will try to deliver those things with the Minister, who is sympathetic and wants to see it happen.

The other key issue coming out of the Portavogie visit today, and it is one that the Committee is very aware of, is the issue of crews. It may not be as big an issue for you on the 10-metre boats, but you still have to go to sea with at least two or possibly three crew. At Portavogie today, the guys were telling us that, with a few exceptions, the crews are extremely difficult to recruit locally for many reasons.

One of the options that we are looking at through this Committee, and obviously we are looking at it as individuals as well, is the Filipino fishermen having a visa exception at tier 2 because we believe they are skilled and that would put them into a different category. Could you give us your thoughts on the crew issues and how important they are to the fishing sector?

Andrew Orr: The fishing industry is absolutely no good unless there is crew. You have to look after your crew and you have to make sure your crew has a decent wage or nobody wants to go to the fishing. We can get all the quota, all the boats, all the grants and all the money, but if you can’t have an environment where you have crew for the boats, the boats and the quota are worthless. You need crew.

I think the Government should do something to try to encourage local people to go back to fishing, or local young ones. The seafarers that are offshore get a tax break. What is the difference if you are 180 days at sea in a fishing boat? We have to go outside the 12-mile limit or you lose your Filipino crew. If we are outside the 12-mile limit, why can we not get tax allowances for our crews, to encourage young people to come? We can’t go to sea without the Filipinos at the minute. We have two boats relying on Filipinos. We had other boats we had to sell because we just could not get crews.

Jimmy Kelly: As it stands at the minute, with the exception of the Sea Fish office in Portavogie that puts them through their basic training, there is no nautical college. If you want to proceed to get your certificate, you have two choices: you either go to England or to Donegal. There used to be a college in Jordanstown, and that has been shut. There used to be schools in the evening in Portavogie where you went on a Friday evening and a Saturday and you did the exams as you qualified. There needs to be some input back into the education and the schools and make an encouragement to go to sea. Years ago there was a youth training programme—that was 30 years ago.

Andrew Orr: We need to get the people making money. Nobody is going to work for buttons; they can get buttons ashore. They need to make more money. You have to create an industry where the crew is getting—“my brother has a fancy car or a house; I want to be able to go there and make the same money as him.”

You know what the fishing was like 30 or 40 years; it was a boom time. Everybody was going to the fishing, from Belfast and everywhere. We need to create an industry that is maybe not a goldmine but a bit of a boom that encourages people to leave school and go to it and invest in it.

Q339       Jim Shannon: In 2020, you will be wanting to see things very differently.

Jimmy Kelly: I was disappointed at the way the two-year transition period was put in. The vast majority—whether you like or lump it, democracy is a wonderful thing. If you vote to leave, you leave. Why we should be held to ransom by Europe beats me. Why are we having to negotiate with them? We are leaving; we are going in three months—bye. Yes, it will be painful and there will be changes. As they are doing at the minute, they are trying to hurt the UK. In every way possible, they are trying to drag their heels to make it painful.

When this happens, it will be painful for us. What they were saying here about the eels—my whelks go to the Republic. We will need a vet’s certificate to get them across the border because they are shellfish. It is the same with certain other types of shellfish. We are going to have to take that pain on the chin, but if the Government support us, allow the quota and start reinvesting in their industry—if this nation was at war, we could not feed it now. In World War II, the fleet fed the country. There is nothing. We need to start again—back to basics.

Q340       Jim Shannon: Government have indicated that they wish to retain the grant system that Europe was popping into Portavogie harbour, Ardglass and also Kilkeel. They have given that commitment to the end of this term of Government to do similar things. How do you see that may grant the aid or the assistance? Maybe they will have new boats to encourage young people to go into the industry and the sector. What would you like to see from Government making sure that happens?

Andrew Orr: Scrapping boats was the thing but to build a boat now is a lot of money. You get a very small boat for £1 million; I think it is £2 million or £3 million for a white fish boat now. I have a 20 year-old pelagic trawler. If you were to build a new one, you are talking about £18 million, £20 million. With all our quotas we just cannot finance that.

Q341       Jim Shannon: But quotas might help you to do that; is that right?

Andrew Orr: It would take a big lift in it to finance a new boat.

Jimmy Kelly: Even if youngsters coming in wanted to go to the inshore fishery, a small Cygnus 21 such as mine is today or what is being built in Kilkeel is £70,000 for the hull at least. Then you have your licence. For the boat and licence it is £100,000. Then you have to buy your cradles. You are talking about £120,000 just to start basic to get back to the fishing. What kid can do that at the minute? Shetland has the oil revenue. They have a pool of money that Shetland Council helps with. In the Republic at the minute they are backing young fishermen, if they have been in the fishing for five years, for 25% of the boat. That is not available here.

Q342       Jim Shannon: We need some good ideas. I will ask the other two panel members a couple of questions. Sharon, looking forward to Brexit, March 2019, you were quite clear that you are a cross-border body that works on both sides of the border in a constructive and co-operative fashion. What do you see in the future post Brexit for how that relationship will work?

Sharon McMahon: The relationship has been there since 1952. I have been at the Loughs Agency for four years and working on north-south co-operation since 2002, with Waterways Ireland as well.

For our survival, the relationship north-south and east-west is paramount. We depend on the relationship of our sponsor departments here in the north and in the south. They work quite closely with us and through the North South Ministerial Council. For us it is paramount that the relationships are maintained and, to be honest, I don’t see any sign of that relationship breaking down because we have been working so well cross-border for years. It is not something new to us. We are amazed when people ask about Brexit in particular because we do it day to day and have been for years and think nothing of it.

Q343       Jim Shannon: It is refreshing, Sharon, to have someone who does not see it as an obstruction, who can prove that it has worked all right and, therefore, has to be maintained. Thanks very much.

Pat, you described the issue of the eels very clearly earlier on. I believe because of the protected status that you have that Government will be keen to work alongside you to ensure that any perceived difficulties that you think that there may be will not become difficulties. Can I say very gently to you that sometimes, like my colleague just referred to, life is not all negatives? Life is about solutions, so if we focus on the solutions and the way forward we can find a way to go forward. Is that something that you are seriously looking at—finding the solutions to move forward?

Pat Close: Absolutely it is. We are determined to secure a future for the fishermen of Lough Neagh. We are not talking about a handful of fishermen. We are talking about 250-odd fishermen in an important industry. I think everyone should understand, and with no disrespect, that we are not an aquaculture unit.

We are a wild eel fishery, an important element, an important part of a broader fishery across Europe. I am disappointed to hear you suggest that we are being negative about it. I think we are far from it. We are looking for solutions but we are very aware of the constraints that are out there and how things look for us. We are all too well aware that, for example, effectively since 2010 we have been operating under licence from Europe.

I take your point about the PGI status and we are proud to have that. In fact, we added to that within the past two months with a further accreditation for another species found in Lough Neagh, the Lough Neagh pollan. Those are great attributes to have, but most important of all in the context of this discussion I think is that those two elements highlight the value of the fishery in Lough Neagh, the value of Lough Neagh as a resource. The onus is on all of us to develop the potential that it has and to support means of securing a viable future for it.

I don’t think it is overstated to say that, all too often in the past, inland fisheries to some extent within the UK were a bit of a poor relation. A lot of the talk and the publicity is about marine fisheries. You may be surprised to hear that eels within the context of Northern Ireland is regularly the highest economic value fin fish to be landed in Northern Ireland. It is followed closely on occasions by mackerel, but in the last 10 years it has been the highest value fish for seven or eight years with an economic value of somewhere in the region of £3 million, which is an important contribution to the rural economy in the geographical area around Lough Neagh and it goes much wider than just the fishermen themselves. It filters out into the community.

Q344       Jim Shannon: I accept that, Pat, very much. My colleague across the way was the former chair of the DARD Committee and I was a member of that DARD Committee, DAERA as it is now. The eel fishery in Lough Neagh is one that we all recognise and locally here we have supported that and the opportunities that we had at that time. I think it is good for us, as a Committee, to hear what your thoughts are but be assured—and I think we need to give you that assurance as well—that we are keen to ensure that the Lough Neagh eel fishery continues to be the great benefactor that it is, not just for Lough Neagh but further afield.

Pat Close: It is very reassuring to hear, Mr Chairman. Could I add one small comment? You asked, I think Andrew, a question about the funding and so on. The funding that we currently receive goes exclusively towards restocking. The point I need to make on that is that 50% of that comes from Europe with 50% match funding. That is a long-term investment. We are talking about a species that has a lifespan of close to 20 years. We have spent probably in the region of £300,000 this year already in restocking.

It will be a minimum of six or seven years before we will see any return from that investment because it will be that length of time before those fish will have reached a marketable size on the part of the fishermen. A significant percentage will escape the attention of fishermen and will have the opportunity to mature within the lough and to ripen as mature silver eels. In the case of male fish, that is an average of between 10 and 12 years. In the case of female fish, it is anything up to 25 years and on average 20 years.

The point I am making is that these investments that we as a company have made, supported by the EU and regional government in match funding, are long-term investments. Are we just going to write that off? We would not be in a position to do that if we did not have a commercial fishery in Lough Neagh to fund it. Okay, we are getting a grant but we also have to come forward with the balance of that money.

The other point is that that is not totally for the benefit of Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland or the UK. The spinoff from that is for the whole of Europe, because there is nothing to suggest that in the same way that salmon come back to the same feeding grounds that their parents left, something similar happens in the case of eels. If we are meeting our escapement targets, as we do on an annual basis, those fish that are being allowed to escape the Lough Neagh system—by good management, I might add—are making their way to the Sargasso Sea. They are breeding, spawning, and there is no guarantee that we will get any percentage of those juvenile fish back. Presumably, we will get some percentage but river basins throughout Europe are benefiting from that. The bigger question is if we are not there as a commercial fishery, who is going to manage Lough Neagh? What is it going to cost?

Q345       Chair: To what extent is the industry diversifying its customer base, in particular looking at the Far East and China, given the issue that you have just cited?

Pat Close: These are issues that we have considered and it is fair to say that there has been interest in the past from particularly Asian sources in Lough Neagh eel. With the current restrictions on juvenile fish coming back into the systems, it is not permitted currently due to the CITES regulations to export beyond EU membership, so we could not do it currently if we had logistically the capability to do it. That would be a different issue, but it is not insurmountable; it is certainly possible. It goes back to the fact that post Brexit the UK is also a signatory to the CITES agreement and presumably the same rules will apply for exports beyond its jurisdiction as well.

Q346       Chair: That is very interesting, isn’t it? If we were looking to improve the vibrancy of your sector, I suppose notwithstanding Brexit, we should be looking at this particular issue, respecting CITES of course, but I think you have given a very compelling case as to how Lough Neagh is able to sustain and indeed contribute to wider European eel systems. That is clearly only going to happen for as long as your sector is commercially viable.

It sounds to me as if there is a piece of work to be done on how we can deal with the restrictions placed upon the UK, because it is rightfully a signatory to CITES, to enable us to promote what happens in Lough Neagh and to thereby ensure the continued contribution that you make to this particular species, for all the reasons set out in CITES, the reasons why we are signatories to CITES. Do you think that would be correct?

Pat Close: Yes, I believe that is a correct assessment. I might add that what happens in the management of the eel industry in Lough Neagh is a position of strength in trade negotiations. I think we have a tremendous asset there. I believe it has been reasonably well managed. I think we have proven that over the years and decades and this is a very positive footing on which we can negotiate post Brexit.

Chair: Thank you. That is useful.

Q347       Mr Robert Goodwill: If I could turn to Sharon, you mentioned in your earlier comments how cross-border working is going very well. I suspect you would not extend that to the situation on Lough Foyle, where we have seen the oyster trestles increasing to 30,000, I think I read. Do you feel that by moving to a post-Brexit situation there would be even less chance of agreement on that type of cross-border issue?

Sharon McMahon: I suppose we are talking here about the dispute over the maritime borders or the maritime boundaries in Lough Foyle. In 2007 we were given powers to manage aquaculture in Lough Foyle and Carlingford. To date, those powers have not been enacted, so we are looking for a document that we call a management agreement to be signed that would allow us, as the Loughs Agency, to manage, on behalf of both Governments, the marine aquaculture in Lough Foyle.

You are right: the trestles is quite a worrying issue for us and we can only sit back and monitor what is going on, but if we had those powers we could go in and regulate them. We have the legislation to do it. We are just waiting—

Q348       Mr Robert Goodwill: Is it both sides of the border where we can’t get agreement?

Sharon McMahon: Yes.

Q349       Mr Robert Goodwill: We don’t have any Government structures in Ulster at the moment to actually sign anything, even if they wanted to.

Sharon McMahon: The issue is not north-south; it is east-west. It is the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Commonwealth and Foreign Office we are waiting on, so it is not north-south. The Act that I am referring to is the Foyle and Carlingford Fisheries (Northern Ireland) Order 2007, which gave us those powers to regulate aquaculture.

I am told by our scientists in the agency that it would bring millions of benefit to the economy in Lough Foyle if we had that regulation enacted, that management agreement, which is just a system that allows us to license and regulate the activity in regard to disease control and sustainable farming. If we had those powers, that would make such a difference in the Foyle area for aquaculture management, but I don’t see Brexit having any effect on that. What we are looking for is the two Governments to sign to enable this Act to be brought about.

Q350       Mr Robert Goodwill: You don’t think that post Brexit our environmental policies might diverge and there could be technical difficulties between the management regime that either country might wish to impose?

Sharon McMahon: I am going to be very cheeky here: as a cross-border body, we have the Acts sitting there that allow us to do that, give us the environmental powers. Nobody else can do that within Lough Foyle; we can do it. This is our argument since 2007: let us take that on. We amend and write our own legislation, which obviously goes through the relevant Departments, and is ratified by the NSMC. We have a suite of policies and legislation and primary legislation sitting waiting to go, but this management agreement is the crux of everything. We could take on that environmental legislation as well.

Q351       Kate Hoey: Sharon, who is stopping it?

Sharon McMahon: We don’t know. We are not party or privy to that. All we know is that it is now being discussed with the Department of Foreign Affairs. I know you asked Minister Eustice about the jurisdictional issue and he was to come back with a reply. Even on the jurisdictional issue, to me the management is so separate. It does not make the jurisdictional issue sorted. It is not going to be, it has been there for years, but it is just the management agreement that needs somebody to sit down and work it out.

Q352       Mr Robert Goodwill: Are there economic factors in play on the value of the fishery? It is not an environmental issue at all, really. It is the value of the oyster fishery.

Sharon McMahon: Unregulated, you do not know what disease has been brought in and what future effect that is going to have on the native oysters in Lough Foyle. The economic value is unregulated. There are no licence fees paid, and there is no encouragement to allow people to come into the industry to set up a farm of their own and run it sustainably, but we would be there to help with that.

We are even looking at putting in a broodstock project of our own in the Foyle that will help the commercial fishermen on the Foyle with the native oyster. We see it as something very positive, and we do believe it will be a huge economic driver in that coastal area in Lough Foyle in particular. It could be £20 million.

Q353       Mr Robert Goodwill: Do you think that post Brexit you will need any more statutory powers or to be consulted on changes to environmental legislation?

Sharon McMahon: We are already consulted and we would like that to continue. With the management agreement, we would get a substantial suite of environmental powers in regard to aquaculture licensing and regulation. For us, it is a management agreement. Pre, post Brexit, we would like to see that in place.

Q354       Chair: In managing these fisheries, in two jurisdictions your aim is equality of outcome. You are aiming for a single outcome in terms of what you do, but you might have to apply different processes in either jurisdiction. Would that be correct or not as we diverge, if we diverge?

Sharon McMahon: Yes, if they diverge that is what could possibly happen. The environmental laws could move ahead in Northern Ireland, where Ireland is left behind—or vice versa, the EU moves ahead. That could possibly happen. But for us the Foyle Fisheries Act is a unique piece of legislation we use and so we would be looking to manage, conserve and protect through that.

We have looked at this in detail and we are concerned that they could diverge and then if there is a prosecution case for pollution events or whatever within the Foyle and we act on that and we are using a certain set of legislation, there is potential for counter cases to come say, “You don’t have the powers”, but actually we do or we can have if we have the management agreement.

Q355       Kate Hoey: It is lovely to see you all. Sharon, I am sitting here thinking I wish you were in charge of the negotiations on Brexit between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland because it seems that you are dealing with the border and you are managing with goodwill and co-operation to make it seamless.

I don’t want to get into the whole rest of the political situation with the border, but I am asking you to agree that perhaps if there is a real unity of purpose and goodwill, a lot the issues that are being talked about—farmers back and forward and all these kind of things—could be solved.

Sharon McMahon: I can only comment on the area in which I work. As I said, I have been working on cross-border co-operation since 2002. The House of Lords Select Committee came and visited us as well and asked the question about the border. We have a huge map of Northern Ireland and Donegal and the border region and they said, “Where is the border?” We said it is our jurisdiction we talk about, our 3,600 kilometres of rivers that we manage and our loughs and we manage 12 miles out to sea, so we don’t see the border day to day in what we do. Rivers don’t recognise borders and neither do salmon and trout, so when we are talking we don’t talk about the border as such.

Q356       Kate Hoey: Both the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, when they existed, and the Republic of Ireland Government, accepted this, so it can work.

Sharon McMahon: Yes, since 1952. It was very forward thinking at the time.

Q357       Kate Hoey: Pat, I think I understand about the CITES stuff, but the EU is one trade bloc. Where are the other trade blocs in eels, or are there any others?

Pat Close: There are no others that we have actually dealt with.

Q358       Kate Hoey: No, but there are others?

Pat Close: But there are others, particularly in Asia.

Q359       Kate Hoey: Are there any other countries individually that are called a trade bloc, being one country?

Pat Close: Not that I am familiar with. You have to understand that in the context of the fact that the very traditional markets for eels would be the likes of Holland and Germany. Those would have had strong eel industries of their own in the past, particularly Holland. For decades now their own industries have been a bit in the doldrums, and that opened the door for Lough Neagh and others.

Q360       Kate Hoey: Are you saying that outside Europe there is not much going on?

Pat Close: There is not sufficient going on, I would suggest, to absorb the sort of volumes of fish from Lough Neagh that we need to deal in to make it a viable industry for those involved.

Q361       Kate Hoey: You have a tremendous asset that is world renowned. Isn’t this a huge opportunity that you have now to stretch out and reach out? What I can’t understand is that as part of the trade bloc at the moment you are carrying out all the conservation, you are recognised as being conservation gold star or whatever. Why would there be a problem going back to CITES? All it needs is will from the politicians to go and say, “This has got to happen”.

Pat Close: Yes. Well, the politicians will take their lead from the scientists.

Q362       Kate Hoey: Yes, but you are conserving at the moment. What is the difference after we leave the EU next year?

Pat Close: Yes, but the scientists will look at the situation within a European context as a whole because it is a single stock. We may very well tick all the boxes in Lough Neagh, but because it is a single stock the scientists at this point in time are not minded to say that there is sufficient indications of a recovery in the stocks across Europe as a whole to allow—in fact, and we have had this discussion with them and suggested to them that they should bring it down even to member state level, if not to river basin district level.

If we had an assessment at river basin district level, we would be very happy because we could tick a lot of boxes and we understand that. But at this point in time, the scientists are not prepared to accept that that would be the way forward for the species as a whole.

Q363       Mr Robert Goodwill: But is part of the problem that, within a single market, fish could move between countries without any checks? Having it as a European bloc is the only logical way to do it to ensure that the species is preserved.

Pat Close: I agree entirely that the challenges and stresses that face the eel as a species can only be resolved by a combined effort across Europe, but I do feel that we have an important part to play in that. But, yes, I agree it is going to take a European—some sort of a joined up or whatever form it takes after Brexit. It is still going to require the commitment of everyone throughout Europe to make this happen.

Q364       Mr Robert Goodwill: Could it be, without the tremendous work you are doing here in Northern Ireland, that the species could be put at an even more critical point on the CITES scale—because without Northern Ireland, the European species is more under threat?

Pat Close: Absolutely. I alluded to that earlier. If you take our restocking programme, for example—and I do not want to bore you with details and figures and so on—within the past 25 years or so this decline in the juvenile eel stocks has been evidenced since the mid-1980s. We, in Lough Neagh, were among the first to flag it up as potentially a danger. We hoped, like everybody else, that it was a temporary blip, but we are 34, 35 years down the line since that and we know now it was anything but a temporary blip.

We have, as part of our restocking programme—and of course you have to understand or be likely to understand that the natural recruitment continues at a reduced level, and that has been continued down through the decades. But aside from that, we have been fortunate enough to be in a position of where we had retained sufficient resources to augment that recruitment by purchasing from other areas. To that extent, we have matched natural recruitment in the last 25 years with just over 100 million juvenile fish being naturally recruited and 110 million, or thereabouts, purchased as supplementary stock.

Mr Chairman, if I may just take advantage to make one further point in relation to the eel industry across Europe as a whole. I have referred to the restocking. I should say or explain to you that the source from those juvenile fish is also within the UK for the most part. We have occasionally imported from France but by far our greatest supplier or largest supplier of the juvenile fish are the glass eel fishes on the Severn, the Parrett, and the Wye. There is a need and a case to be made for those glass eel fishes in those areas being recognised as an important part of what we do and vice versa.

Kate Hoey: It sounds then as if the EU need us more than we need them.

Pat Close: That is my view.

Q365       Kate Hoey: We need to be shouting that from the rooftops, and I hope that you are going to go out there positively pushing that and getting our Government to back you up as much as possible, because again this does not sound like common sense.

Moving on to Jimmy in particular, I am very interested in the whole question of shellfish and lobsters. Do you fish also up on the north coast at all?

Jimmy Kelly: No. Due to the size of my vessel, I am limited to about 12 to 13 miles either side of Portavogie. Basically, the Fisheries have put zones. We are either 30 at E or 30 at C up the coast, so we are limited to where we can go.

We are limited by weather, days at sea that affect the larger vessels to an extent. We have to deal with our own days at sea; the weather dictates ours. This week—in fact, most of this winter—has been easterly. If you can imagine, it has come on a lee shore, it is not a nice place or a safe place for a small vessel for hauling cradles, and especially when the tide turns you are exposed to broaching, so we are limited to where we can go and what we can do.

Q366       Kate Hoey: Do you have Irish-registered vessels coming in to take—

Jimmy Kelly: We have Irish mussel vessels.

Kate Hoey: Registered where?

Jimmy Kelly: The gentlemen that took the court case in Dublin against the agreement and got the Northern Ireland vessels banned from Irish waters are the same gentlemen who are coming into Northern Ireland waters with large mussel vessels with heavy dredgers. We are looking at 24 hours’ notice to move our gear so that they can get on the mussel beds.

Q367       Kate Hoey: You have to do that?

Jimmy Kelly: Apparently so. The seed mussel is taken away and deployed either at Carlingford or other places. There is a food chain, your crab and lobsters and stuff feed on other species, and in the Copeland Sound several years ago when a large fleet of mussel boats came and tore the bottom to bits, it basically destroyed the ecosystem. We are limited by weather we are then hampered by larger vessels and a conflict situation arises.

Q368       Kate Hoey: I was interested because I heard that in the north coast you get a lot of Irish boats coming over from Donegal that are registered in theory in Londonderry to an address.

Jimmy Kelly: I have to call them flagships.

Kate Hoey: Yes, but taking the catch back to the Republic of Ireland, so the UK gets no taxes.

Jimmy Kelly: I believe someone has deposited it as well. Years ago, the mussel vessels were limited to a smaller size, I think it was 13 or 15 metres, and a certain horsepower. They have developed into now super dredgers, with large horsepower. It is not for me to say that one or another man cannot have another industry, but if an area of seabed is delegated to them for seed mussels and they catch it and then flog that seabed on to another outside agency for X amount of pounds, that defeats the purpose.

Q369       Kate Hoey: Do you think when we leave the EU and the common fisheries policy, we will be able to try to at least challenge some of this?

Jimmy Kelly: I would hope that a back-to-basics approach is taken by Fisheries. The Fisheries Department here years ago basically tried to maintain the Northern Ireland fleet at a young age, keep it healthy, keep an interest going. There was a shipyard in Bangor. They used to give extra grants—10% or 15% more to build locally—that kept crafts, shipbuilding, shipwrights working; it kept trades in the industry. When I was younger there was 30-odd shipyards up the east coast of Scotland. Now I think we are down to two: Macduff and—

Andrew Orr: One in Scotland and one in England.

Jimmy Kelly: All the coastal communities throughout the UK—here, Scotland and England—are losing trade. Craftmanship—there are no kids doing apprenticeships in the shipyards. They are losing welders. They are losing the skills that are needed to keep our maritime nation afloat.

Another worry I have for when we finally do leave is there was an understanding that there was a patrol vessel for every 600 square miles at sea. I do not think the Royal Navy has the capability at the current moment in time to police our waters. That is something that needs to be looked at as well.

Q370       Kate Hoey: Andrew, if you had to sum it all up and put it on a balance of one to 10, are you optimistic? Where would it be on the scale?

Andrew Orr: What we are sold, we get.

Kate Hoey: Yes, in terms of what?

Andrew Orr: We would like a 10, but—

Jimmy Kelly: We would be lucky to get five.

Andrew Orr: —if we got five, I suppose, as long as we do not go negative. It is there to be had if we have the political will to do it.

Jimmy Kelly: Unfortunately, there are very few in Parliament linked to the fishing, with the exception of Jim, Mr Gove and that lady for Cornwall.

Kate Hoey: I know you may not necessarily agree with it, but the organisation Fishing for Leave does attract quite a lot of MPs to go to their meetings.

Jimmy Kelly: All right, that is good, but I am trying to pick ones from fishing communities and links to the industry.

Kate Hoey: Thank you very much. That was very helpful.

Q371       Ian Paisley: Thank you for your very interesting and enlightening evidence that you have been giving to us. It has been very helpful. Jimmy and Sharon, you have both used the words about “will to do this”. That is the secret in all of this; if we can find the will, we will find a way. That has to be the cri de coeur of what is happening in the revolutionary change that the United Kingdom is currently going through with regards to all of its industry and with its external relationships.

Sharon, the Committee should take note of the point that you made about encouraging the FCO and the Foreign Office in the Republic of Ireland to get on with it, make that agreement and let you exercise the muscle that you have. My concern is that they have taken so long to get to this point and there has been so much—I do not want to characterise it in the wrong way—liberty taken by people on the lough that that is going to be the starting point where you start to exercise that muscle. Will you be able to go in and challenge and say, “That has to be removed”?

Sharon McMahon: We have talked about this as well. It would be nice to be starting with a clean slate, but obviously there are these oyster trestles there that are increasing all the time. We have talked about that; we would need to go in even with force, maybe. To remove them you would need some back-up to go in and do that. There would definitely be a lot of legal challenges ahead because you are going in there and people already have land and have established an aquaculture situation on it.

Q372       Ian Paisley: They have never been put on notice over the years they have done this, so they have almost got trespassing rights as well.

Sharon McMahon: This is on one side to the shore; on the Northern Ireland side recently, DAERA did go in and issue a notice to remove. A few had started so DAERA did go in and remove them but there were not as many.

Q373       Ian Paisley: The downside in all of this is if there is a poisonous batch brought in, we could wipe out our entire species or significantly damage an economy, which you put at about £20 million.

Sharon McMahon: Yes, potential £20 million. That is based on aquaculture throughout the island of Ireland. But it is more what it does to the industry, the reputation of oysters coming from Ireland in general—from anywhere within the island—if there is disease or something poisonous. It is a food source and at the minute for us it is an unregulated food source. Yes, it has the potential then.

Our scientists talk about the carrying capacity where there is infringement on the native oyster, the space for the native oyster, and the plankton—the food for the native oyster—when it is uncontrolled. That is why it is so important to have this regulated. It is quite urgent now. It is a priority.

Q374       Ian Paisley: Does the consumer need to be educated about not taking these products?

Sharon McMahon: I am not sure on that.

Q375       Ian Paisley: Obviously, if a person is growing them they have a market but if that market was educated that by taking them you are damaging this real market, is there merit in pursuing that?

Sharon McMahon: I do not know where that market is. We have not been made aware of it. We assume it is in the rest of Europe. It could be Spain, France. It is not within Ireland.

Q376       Ian Paisley: If you were buying oysters, where would you want to buy them from? Where would you want them sourced? You are going to tell me Dublin Bay.

Sharon McMahon: I will let you into a secret; I do not eat them. We understand what you are saying and definitely, yes. The Loughs Agency produced the drone footage that has been shown on several television programmes and we sent it off to the Foreign Office and the Department of Foreign Affairs. Everybody was quite shocked when they saw the extent of it, because when you are talking to somebody about it, they cannot imagine it until they see it.

Ian Paisley: It is something we can—excuse the pun—get our teeth into as a Committee, Mr Chairman.

Sharon McMahon: There have been discussions. In 2007 we were told that by 2010 we would have this regime rolled out. Then it was 2012 and now it is at a stalemate—there is nothing. We keep bringing it up at our NSMC meetings and with our sponsor branch. We liaise quite frequently with them on the matter.

Q377       Ian Paisley: Tell me about the additional sources of funding. You mentioned that you had been exploring issues with the Prince’s Trust and Co-operation Ireland. You had received some support from Interreg, if I am right, and you would be worried about that drying up; is that the case?

From memory, Interreg, over six or seven years, brought in about £300 million across the whole of the EU, but other companies who are not in the EU could benefit from Interreg. Have you looked at exploiting Interreg—if it still exists—post Brexit, of doing a co-financing programme with Interreg, in the way the Swiss do?

Sharon McMahon: We have thought about it. Our subject is of great interest; it is environmental; we are a very relevant 21st century organisation; the environment and protection of certain species; and it is a food source. Yes, we are looking at making applications with other organisations. We have explored one just recently with Portugal; we would be the lead and we are looking at a research programme as well there.

We have one now that will take us through to 2022, I think it is, if it is successful. We will know in the next few weeks. It is a sea monitor and it is about managing the species within Lough Foyle salmon and tracking the mortality rates of the salmon. That is in association with a wide range of countries: Canada, a university in America, working with Glasgow again.

Q378       Ian Paisley: Would those companies be co-financing with Interreg?

Sharon McMahon: Yes.

Ian Paisley: We could do that as a nation as well. It would not be an impediment.

Sharon McMahon: Plus we are still in the EU with our sponsor Department.

Q379       Ian Paisley: Does that programme continue post Brexit to 2022 anyway? We can still continue to benefit to that?

Sharon McMahon: That is what we are told. We have two schemes running at the minute where we are not lead, with catchment care, with Donegal Council as the lead and various other agencies. That is bringing us in £1.4 million over a number of years. We are in a project called SWELL and then as sea monitors we would have the lead in that. It is about £5 million over four years.

Q380       Ian Paisley: Pat, the issues with regards to Lough Neagh are absolutely right. Lough Neagh is a world-renowned product. Is the problem not that we have just taken it for granted and that we have not appreciated what we have on our doorstep as a lough? The constant thing that I hear—and do not take this the wrong way—from community associations, those around Lough Neagh, is that it never meets its full potential. Is that down to the fact it is not appreciated for what it could achieve and this may be an opportunity to help us reach the full potential?

Pat Close: I cannot disagree with any of that. Lough Neagh has tremendous potential and one of the elements associated with Lough Neagh is obviously as a source of food. I would be the first to accept that has not been something that has been flagged up sufficiently through the years. We have, in the last three or four years, begun to change that and to reach out. We have had open days and attended various events, and all the rest. That has changed. I often say that I am amazed. It relates to what you have just said; if you move 10 miles beyond the shoreline of Lough Neagh it is remarkable how little people know about the asset on its doorstep.

Q381       Ian Paisley: It is the same problem in Bushmills. A lot of people in Bushmills have never been to the Giant’s Causeway.

Pat Close: It is exactly the same.

Ian Paisley: When it is on your doorstep, it is almost less appreciated.

Pat Close: You take it for granted or you do not have a particular interest. In our case that has been exacerbated by the fact that we are exporting all the time. There was no local market. We were not doing anything to promote the local market. We are not a nation of fish eaters possibly. Anyhow, certainly not eel eaters.

Ian Paisley: No, not eel definitely.

Pat Close: I think there is a certain aversion to the very look of an eel. You are quite right. This is something we have been trying to address. Lough Neagh is a bit of a jewel for the province.

Q382       Ian Paisley: It needs to be exploited more. There is obviously no doubt about that. That is the thing I always have picked up. Also we do not look at it from the other point of view. If I were the Dutch, I would be screaming in Barnier’s ear, “You better sort this issue with the eels out for us”, because if this collapses it is the Dutch and the Germans who lose out here. Maybe they are screaming in his ear about it and he is just being clever by not saying anything and making us look as if we are the ones in trouble.

Pat Close: Possibly they are, but we have to understand the product they buy from us is not their total import. They also would have eel farms, for example, on the Continent, including Holland, which are much closer to them and therefore can supply them much cheaper.

There have been huge developments in the aquaculture, or the farming of eels, in recent years to the point where the gap between the natural product from Lough Neagh and what they can now produce in farms is closed. It is not there—it will never be there, as far as I am concerned. Lough Neagh will always command a bit of a premium in that regard, and there is a demand there.

Eels and the problems the stocks have had in recent years has had an effect on consumers. There has been a lot of bad publicity, a lot of negativity about it. That has to be addressed.

Ian Paisley: There is definitely a marketing job to be done.

Pat Close: There is a huge marketing job.

Q383       Ian Paisley: Maybe if you can get some sort of trendy chef to do something with eels that attracts the local consumer to say, “I want to try that as a product”. Who would have had scallops on a plate 30 years ago? People would not have touched them and now they are the thing that everyone wants.

Pat Close: We have done work with the food service industry and we do have great advocates in the food service industry.

You raised a point earlier about Lough Neagh and the fact that it has tremendous potential and all the rest. Historically Lough Neagh has suffered from the lack of a joined-up approach to the management of the lough.

Ian Paisley: You have six councils touching it. Who is in charge?

Pat Close: Yes, exactly. But even at a different level, if you take it at stakeholder level, for example, there are so many agencies and Government bodies, community groups and all the rest, and nobody has ever sat down to see if they could pull all of this together.

There was a movement towards community ownership in the past couple of years with a development trust. Unfortunately, because we do not have an Assembly in place at the moment, that is sitting there. That is an awful shame because there has been a huge amount of work done on that. That had the potential to bring stakeholders and community interest groups together to make much more of the lough. But crucially, the one thing it does require is investment in its infrastructure. Accessibility to the lough is not great.

Q384       Ian Paisley: Thank you, that is very helpful. Jimmy and Andrew, on infrastructure, in the period that we have between exiting the EU in March next year through to the final, final closing of the door and walking away, we have an opportunity to look at infrastructure. What infrastructure would you like Her Majesty’s Government to be looking at in your area to help sea fisheries?

Andrew Orr: We have plans for a new harbour in Kilkeel. If we could develop that, there is potential to bring a lot more ships in for repairs, and bring more fish and stuff into the market. If you can create a hub, you will attract more business and more ships but you have to put the infrastructure in there to start that. That is the way we are seeing it all around Europe. There is a hub in Norway or a hub in Skagen in Denmark for all the fish markets, all the factories that have come into it. That is what you need to do in Kilkeel to try to start some place that you can attract more businesses and more ships to. You can even get a repair business up and going.

Jimmy Kelly: That said, we have three ports in Portavogie and I would like to see investment continue in all three. Portavogie has the potential as the most easterly. It is currently maybe one of the safest harbours. It was dredged recently. It has potential if the wind farm industry was to start. We have potential for berthing, offshore work, and we can work 365 days a year—God willing—not dependent on tide.

If you go round Ireland as a whole, you will see that investment has been put into Killybegs, Fenit, Castletownbere, every other major port on the west coast. Northern Ireland investment has been very limited lately. Every small jetty in Ireland has a 5-tonne crane. As a safety measure too, if a small cradle boat hits the rocks and gets a hole he can get into the harbour, get a strap around him and lift it out. As it stands in Portavogie, we have no means. We have one slip now.

Q385       Ian Paisley: We saw that today and the point was made to us by the chief executive officer about the smaller slip bay. For all the money it would take—

Jimmy Kelly: Very little to get that back in business. We have no safe refuge or no means to get our boats out. The slips are very much in demand if you are a keel, so that puts more pressure on the one that is left in Portavogie. Where the smaller vessels were able to go on to what was the wee slippers—we used to call it—it is no longer there. We need to start reinvesting.

Q386       Ian Paisley: You made a very good point, which I do not think had been made to any of us before, about the college system and getting young people pushed that way. That is a point that is worthy for us to note.

Jimmy Kelly: Starting from school. When I went to school many years ago even the fishing was frowned upon then, and it was supposedly better days, “What did you go into that for?” Maths was boring sums but yet when I left school I had to study navigation, whereas there could be a day of coastal studies that could cover environment, aquaculture. We need to start again both at the Fisheries and in the education that we are a coastal state. To remain a coastal state, we need ships and shipyards and the facilities to get those up and running.

Andrew Orr: I had to take my boat to Fraserburgh to get repairs done because there is no place big enough in Northern Ireland to do it. Harland can do it but they are busy. You used to go to Dublin; it is closed now so on the whole east coast there is not a dry dock where you can take a bigger ship. If they built the dry dock in Kilkeel or Ardglass or Portavogie, it would attract passing trade.

Jimmy Kelly: It was only with the Napoli disaster that they realised, “We have a big tanker here. Where can we put this in your dry dock?” If Belfast had not been there—they were planning, I believe, to build apartments around it at the time. Thankfully, the Government have the sense now to put an order on it to protect it for 100 years. Filling all our dry docks, which has happened around Newcastle and places like that—we are an island nation and we need ships and places to repair them.

Q387       Chair: Thank you, and particularly thank you for your reference to the Royal Navy. I can only wholeheartedly agree.

Jimmy Kelly: I did not mean any offence in that, but I was being realistic.

Q388       Chair: I think you are very realistic and I am very sure that most naval officers would say that we have too few hulls, in particular too few small hulls, and patrol boats are an exceptionally important part of that. You are absolutely correct in your assessment of the UK’s capacity currently to protect its open waters.

Can I bring us back to the subject of workforce? This morning in Portavogie we met some extremely nice people from Ghana and from Lithuania, and had a chat with them. It is very clear that the industry is heavily dependent upon non-indigenous labour right now, part of which is European. The question, for Andrew and Jimmy principally, is: do you have any concerns or to what extent do you have concerns about the sustainability of that workforce post Brexit? What can be done about it and how can we make it easier to attract workers, from both the European Union and outside the European Union, after 29 March next year?

Andrew Orr: It is very difficult even to get Filipino workers into the UK for our boats. My brother deals with bringing in the few people we have, but he has to jump through hoops to get it. Everything we have done is above board but the Border Force comes in and scoops up the men and takes them away home. It is hard to build a business without your crew. If you were able to get crew and know you can get crew, you can build a business. The Filipinos and Lithuanians are very important to us. We have two wee boats and we have two or three in each boat.

Q389       Chair: To what extent have you noticed a reduction in the appetite of people from the Baltic states and eastern Europe to come to the UK to work in fishing? The reasons for such a thing would be multiple: perceived lack of attractiveness of the UK; lack of friendliness of the UK because of Brexit perhaps—not terribly convincing, but nevertheless; a reduction in the value of the pound against the euro; and of course prosperity back home.

Andrew Orr: I do not know what is going on back home for them but the few guys we had from Lithuania—we have had a couple with us for five or 10 years and they are still here, but I think when the pound was stronger they were sending more money home and they were doing better that way.

Q390       Chair: To what extent would it be more attractive, for example, for them to work in the Republic of Ireland right now rather than in the United Kingdom?

Andrew Orr: I don’t necessarily know that their like-for-like boats are going to make money, because it is just down to what the boat catches, so I cannot say that they are actually going to make any more money in real terms.

Chair: They would be paid in euros.

Andrew Orr: They are getting euros not pounds, but most things are relative.

Jimmy Kelly: The Border Force needs to take an even-handed approach to crewing as a whole. They previously issued an exemption for fishermen, which ran out a couple of years ago. They have recently issued an exemption for Filipino seamen to serve on the windfarm vessels. What is the difference between a Filipino on a UK boat, be it a Windcat boat or a fishing boat? He is coming into a UK port and he is no time in—five or six hours—and he is back at sea again.

Yes, I can understand the 12 miles stayout. This is the Irish Sea we are fishing and 12 miles from Portavogie, you are near enough in Manx waters. There are 26 miles between the places. Let’s be realistic, a wee bit of common sense, take an even-handed approach to employment of all seafarers within the UK but vet them properly.

Andrew Orr: There have been a lot of boats sold in Northern Ireland this last while, mainly down to not getting crew. The same thing has happened in the Clyde where, because it is enclosed, you cannot get outside the 12-mile limit. The west coast of Scotland is the same. The boats that have Filipino crew cannot go and fish there because they are all frightened of the Border Force pouncing on them and lifting their crew. Now they are forced to fish in places that are not as productive as long as they are outside the 12 miles. They cannot go to the places that are productive, where they traditionally used to go, because they are frightened of losing their crew. It is not a very good situation, the way it is at the moment.

Jimmy Kelly: In the long term, we need to start bringing our own youngsters back into the industry, be it fishing or commercial.

Q391       Chair: Other than trying to upskill—we are talking, in modern parlance, about apprenticeships, I suppose, something involving formal further education—what would you say we could do to make the industry more attractive? I think most of us this morning were struck by it was a beautiful day but it looked like really hard work, so that puts off a lot of people.

Jimmy Kelly: They do give bursaries for teacher training, nursing and things like that. Why can we not have some type of bursary, like the Slater Fund, for example, for fishing? We need to make an encouragement, some type of goal, that you can get your certificate and once you get that the world becomes your oyster; you can go to the merchant service, you can go to liners or tankers.

At the minute, some pursers on the east coast of Scotland are working with exemptions because they cannot get class 1 marine engineers. If we leave Europe, we need to put an education programme in place so that there is training available for fishing, the wheelhouse, the deck department and the engine department. We need to look at the broad spectrum.

Andrew Orr: We need to be able to give our crews more money.

Q392       Chair: Is that the elephant in the room?

Andrew Orr: That is the whole thing. If you can give the crew good money, you are going to attract people. There was a boom in fishing here 40 or 50 years ago. People who were never at the fishing were going to the fishing because there was so much money.

Jimmy Kelly: They were leaving their trades to go.

Andrew Orr: They were coming from Belfast, the middle of Northern Ireland, everywhere, to Kilkeel.

Q393       Kate Hoey: Was that before we joined the common fisheries policy?

Andrew Orr: Yes, about that time.

Q394       Chair: Pat Close, did you want to come in?

Andrew Orr: Those days are not coming back.

Chair: What goes around, comes around. We will see. Pat?

Pat Close: What Jimmy has been talking about resonates with us in Lough Neagh, although it is a different situation, obviously, about labour from elsewhere and so on. That does not affect us with regard to the fishing crews themselves—potentially it could in relation to further processing, which we have undertaken in the last year or so—because we do not have a huge workforce to start with, but we do have a few eastern Europeans. The individuals in question would have been here for a number of years and they have the skills that we require, and there is not an abundance of those skills.

However, on the point that Jimmy and Andrew have been making with regard to providing incentives for fishermen, there is no disguising the fact that we at Lough Neagh have a fishing community whose age profile is way too high. We are not attracting younger people into the industry and I think that is sad. Mr Paisley has referred to the fact that the fishing industry in Lough Neagh is a bit of gem and it has been well known globally and all the rest. It would be an awful shame to lose that but if we are not to lose it, we have to do something about attracting younger people in. Ultimately—and I think you referred to this yourself—it is all about making it worth their while.

We have come from an area where historically alternative employment opportunities have not been that thick on the ground and a lot of people by necessity became fishermen. That has changed in recent years. There have been better opportunities. More fishermen’s families have gone on to third level education and broadened their horizons and so on and maybe in some ways the fishing industry has been a victim of its own success.

Nevertheless, there is a problem on the horizon that needs to be addressed. I know I am thinking here of if we can provide incentives—for example, for young farmers to become involved in their businesses, do we need to be looking at doing the same for fishermen’s families?

Chair: That is very helpful Thank you.

Q395       Mr Robert Goodwill: One of the skippers from Whitby said he had heard of a scheme—I think it was in Denmark—where if a young person is recruited, they get some additional quota to go with that. I don’t know if anyone is aware of that and whether that would work here.

Andrew Orr: In Europe, they do seem to work with their fishermen more to encourage the industry. They do seem to push the boundaries or push the rules more to suit the locals.

Q396       Mr Robert Goodwill: I know that in agriculture there is nothing like a new tractor to help you attract new staff. We saw some very old boats in the harbour today. Do you think that might be part of the problem as well, that people want to work with high tech, new vessels?

Andrew Orr: It would certainly help.

Jimmy Kelly: It is a safety issue. If you were to ask the marine accident investigation board about one of the largest causes of sinking, it is flooding, it is pipework; boats have been neglected. Older vessels are coming to Ireland and they were at the end of days elsewhere. They need investment and they need to be fixed. You need something safe to go to sea on. If a vessel is not safe, you are putting your crew in danger and personally I would not put myself on the line for any unsafe vessel.

You have to make it encouraging. Share fishing is like gambling. You get a share of what you catch. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is bad. It is not a nine-to-five job. Working hours regulations have kicked in within the merchant fleet—77 hours a week. To be fair, you cannot work a man like a slave, but when you haul your net, you have the tidy-up work on the deck. The regulations that apply on a merchant vessel maybe do not apply on a fishing vessel, and you are self-employed on the whole. That needs to be looked at, with a lot of input and a wide scope. Hopefully, once we leave, those in charge will do it.

Q397       Chair: Thank you very much indeed. That has been very comprehensive. To finish off, I wonder if there is anything you think we might have missed in our ever so gentle interrogation this afternoon—which you stood up to extremely well, I should add. Is there anything, perhaps, we should know about, think about, that perhaps Mr Gove should think about as he prepares to launch his much awaited Fisheries Bill?

Jimmy Kelly: Pat is concerned that there is no one agency looking after the whole lough. The good lady sitting to his right could maybe take that on too.

Pat Close: On the positive side, one thing I would like to stress in that context is that the connection between Northern Ireland and GB with regard to the industry, the supply of glass eels to Lough Neagh, is all part of the same system. There is a side of this issue that needs to be looked at as a whole UK issue. Again, I stress we have nothing to hide with our industry. In fact, we should be shouting about it, as Mr Paisley has suggested, and I think it is a position of strength for us going forward, post Brexit.

Andrew Orr: We feel, too, that it should be a UK fishing industry. The Scots have a very good lobby—a good team working with the Scottish Government. If there are benefits to come, they need to come to the whole of the UK, not just one area over another area. As Jimmy said earlier, there are different licences for different things; you can fish the same place and have different rules, and we are still all in the UK. We need a more UK-based—

Jimmy Kelly: Similar to what there was in the Republic in the 1950s, where it was an open and even playing field for everybody. The quota was there for everybody, the licences were there for those who wanted them and the boats were available if they wanted them. We need to go back to basics and start rebuilding our fleet.

Chair: That has come across very strongly today. Today has been a day of reflection, certainly, for the members of the Committee. There is a lot for us to think about. What you have contributed this afternoon has certainly provided a great deal for us to think about and will definitely enrich the quality of our report when we come to complete it in the very near future. Thank you very much indeed for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be with us this afternoon.