Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I am not an expert on fishing by any means. However, I know the fishing industry is facing a massive crisis and it has been brought to my attention whenever I go to the west and by those fishermen in Dún Laoghaire who are left. It is a coastal town which used to have a thriving fishing industry. All the fishermen say that EU fisheries policies have been a disaster for Ireland and this is visibly apparent. The crisis seems to be intensifying very significantly over recent years, with more people being driven out of fishing while others are struggling to make a living in the industry.

I do not doubt the Minister's bona fides in this matter. There seems to be general agreement on the seriousness and tragedy of this situation. It is a crime for an island country such as ours that the fishing industry is teetering on the brink of extinction. It is even more of a crime that this is the case when so many people are unemployed and there is an accelerating depopulation of rural Ireland. Jobs must be created and, as Deputy Ferris said, the sea is probably our greatest resource. The sea defines us. If this country does not have a fishing industry, we will have lost something of what we are as a people. We are perilously close to losing what defines us. The fishing industry has provided jobs in the past and could provide many more.

As much as I have criticised the Government in other arenas, I commend the jobs initiative on its focus on tourism. Our attractiveness as a tourism destination would be damaged if fishing, which is one of the things which defines us, were made extinct as a result of the policies of the European Union. It is obvious that this plan to privatise quotas can only benefit the big fishing interests, the big European states and the multinational companies. They are responsible for the parlous state of the fish stocks. It is really a case of the big fish eating the little fish in every sense and this policy will further accelerate that situation and sound the death knell for Irish fishing and the small-time fisherman. The issue of discards is an obscenity by which perfectly good fish are thrown away. Something needs to be done about this policy.

If the figures given by the Minister are correct, that we only receive 15% of the fish from our own waters, we must say to the EU that this is unacceptable and that we will not put up with it. What benefit is there in being part of a European Union that is plundering our resources in this way and which has brought us to this state? This echoes the current economic crisis. Our so-called partners are supposedly helping us but in fact they are burying us in the interests of big financial and corporate interests in Europe. We must stand up to these people and we have to defend our fishing industry and small fishermen. We should oppose this privatisation of fish quotas. We must work together on an all-party basis to decide how to stand up to these big European interests who just regard our seas as something to be plundered at our expense.

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