Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Josephine Kelly, one of my officials, for her patience. As members are aware, the Common Fisheries Policy has not received the attention it merits. The agreement relating to it was negotiated at the same time as that pertaining to the CAP. In many ways the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy is much more radical. This was necessary because the existing policy was not as effective as it should have been in terms of ensuring that we protect and maintain fish stocks and support fishing communities. When, 20, 30 or 50 years from now, people look back at European policy from the point of view of fisheries, I hope this will be seen as a very radical point of change in terms of how European waters are fished. The CAP is also a point of change but it is nothing like as radical from a policy perspective. The CAP is more about money and how it is distributed.

There are a number of key features in respect of the Common Fisheries Policy agreement. In the first instance, we are committed to fishing to what is termed the maximum sustainable yield. This will not happen overnight but we have stated that we will fish stocks, where possible, to maximum sustainable yield by 2015. All fish stocks to which quotas attach will be fished to maximum sustainable yield by 2020. In other words, the scientific research carried out by the Irish Marine Institute and other bodies will inform us as to the size, state and health of stocks and we will then apply the maximum sustainable yield formula in respect of them. This formula allows the maximum commercial catch to be taken from such stocks while ensuring that they are maintained. This is a really positive step forward for those in the fishing industry and for fish stocks. It will mean that there will still be fish in ten years' time and that we will not fish in an unsustainable way.

The second radical change proposed under the agreement is a move away from discarding fish. We are going to introduce - on a phased, species-by-species basis - an obligation to land fish. This means that those in the industry will be obliged to change, quite radically, the way they fish. They will not be able to simply dump over the side of their vessels fish for which they do not have a quota. It is perfectly legal to discard fish at present but, more than anyone else, fishermen really resent the fact that current policy requires them to dump, in some cases, 50% to 60% of the fish they catch. Many of the latter are healthy adult fish that are marketable and valuable and they are dumped over the side for seagulls and other species to eat or else to rot at the bottom of the sea. Apart from anything else, this is immoral and we are going to change the position.

A great deal of discussion and negotiation was required with the fishing industry and with politicians in the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers in respect of this matter. My main objective was always to ensure the policy shift to which I refer would be made but in a way to which the fishing industry could adapt and with which it could live. I am of the opinion that we have achieved that. There are flexibilities in the system which will allow fishermen to manage this change. For example, they will have inter-species flexibility in the context of using their quotas. They will also have inter-annual flexibility in this regard. If a fisherman is operating in the cod, haddock and whiting fishery in the Celtic Sea, for example, and he has a quota in respect of cod and whiting but not for haddock and he brings on board a large catch of haddock, he can use up to 9% of the quota of his target species to compensate for this. There will be a cost involved but at least the fisherman in question will be allowed to land the fish and sell it. If, at the end of the season, a fisherman has caught more fish than he has a quota to land, he can take up to 10% of next year's quota to compensate. So the figures are 9% for inter-species flexibility and 10% for inter-annual flexibility.

Those flexibilities are useful. Then one has what is called a de minimisfigure, starting at 7% and over a five-year period working down to 5%. Our fishing fleet will be able to discard up to 5% of what it catches, but only when it proves it cannot avoid catching those fish. In other words, fishermen have to be able to show they are targeting fish and using modern gear to do that, whether it is Swedish grid to release cod in the Irish Sea when one is catching prawns, escape hatches in the Celtic Sea or mesh size. If one cannot avoid catching fish and cannot deal with it through inter-species and inter-annual flexibilities, one can have this outlet of a de minimisfigure spread across the fleet.

We have sensible, practical implementation measures, but the net effect will be dramatic. At the moment approximately half a million tonnes of fish are discarded in Irish waters each year. If one thinks about that and the value of it, the fish are being wasted and it is damaging stocks and undermining breeding. That will end and it is a really good thing for the fishing industry that it will end. We will have grant aid to help fishermen adapt, to buy the new gear they will need and to become more targeted in terms of how they fish. We will have to go around the country to explain to fishermen how that will work to make sure they are comfortable with it. They are obviously uncomfortable with it at the moment because they know it is a difficult, radical change. Generally, change costs money and it is money they do not have. Much reassurance is needed and we will work hard to provide that. Points to note are fishing based on scientific advice, ending discards, and making decisions on a regional basis involving the fishing industry, which is something it has been seeking for years. We have now an agreed model for regional decision making that will allow us make decisions for the Irish Sea, the Celtic Sea or the western waters with other countries that are fishing in those areas, rather than having to go back to Brussels and go through a long process to make decisions.

In terms of Irish-specific issues, we have maintained and strengthened the language in regard to the Hague preferences. We would like to have gone further in terms of enshrining the new Hague preferences in the new CFP as an automatic right to this country every year but that was not possible. Anybody who says it was is not being realistic. If we had created a debate around the Hague preferences we could have lost them altogether. There was the capacity to lose them altogether. We are the only country in the European Union that would vote in favour of the Hague preferences. It is possible that Britain would but it is divided on the issue. Nobody else wants to give Ireland preferential treatment in terms of the allocation of stocks and that is the effect of the Hague preferences. We have strengthened the wording on the Hague preferences but we have not enshrined them as a right. As Minister, I still have to make a case in December to ensure we get the benefit from them, but in my view it is still a good result.

In terms of protecting the Irish Box, again, we have enshrined in the regulation the objective of protecting biologically sensitive areas. The only biologically sensitive area in the European Union is the Irish Box, apart from a small one off one of the Canary Islands somewhere in the Atlantic. In general, we are encouraging countries to set aside biologically sensitive areas and to implement fishing restrictions there. Again, that was very much our intention in terms of the protection of the Irish Box.

We had a huge risk at the start of the discussion on the Common Fisheries Policy due to the Commission’s wish to introduce what was essentially the privatisation and trading of quotas. The system was based on single transferable concessions, TFCs. That part of the proposal has gone and we can maintain public ownership of quota, which we will allocate on the basis of who needs it most. That is an important win for us.

There is also strong support in the new CFP for the sustainable development of aquaculture. I ask colleagues around the table to help me develop the sector. There is much concern and misunderstanding about the aquaculture sector, in particular finfish farming. We must help people to understand that it will be a future growth area in terms of the extraordinary consumer demand for fish products that simply cannot be met by catching wild fish. We can do that in a sustainable, safe way and that is what we must do. We can create literally thousands of jobs by doing it and we can do it right. The CFP will support us in doing that in terms of some of the money that is available to us.

We are negotiating a fisheries fund for the next seven years to help us pay for the new CFP in terms of the transition that is necessary. We got a particularly bad deal the last time in terms of the fisheries fund. Even though the overall fisheries fund is being reduced by 7% in terms of a broad budget cut, this country’s allocation might well be increased slightly. We fought very hard for that and we will know the outcome in September. I have made a very strong case for an increase in our allocation of fisheries funds that I hope the Commission has taken on board. I will come back to the committee with a figure when I have it in September.

That is the general theme around fishing. The key Irish issues are the Hague preferences, regional decision making, maintaining the national ownership of quota and the protection of the Irish Box. We have won on all of them. The broader and bigger, radical policy changes that are needed around fishing to maximum sustainable yield, ending discards, being more targeted in terms of how we fish and supporting both freshwater and saltwater aquaculture are all progressive changes. For me this will be a difficult CFP to implement because it requires a lot of change but it is a really good policy change. When people look back in years to come at moments of change in big industries such as fishing, this CFP reform will stand out way above the others which were very conservative and did not change a whole lot. They maintained unsustainable fishing. In my view this is a really good moment of change in terms of how we conserve fish stocks and from a fishing industry point of view. If one is a fisherman who wants to bring a son or daughter into the business one can look ahead and anticipate that stocks will grow. We will have challenges in getting there but we will see less and less of our stocks being unsustainably fished. That must be good news for everybody and it means that quotas will increase over time rather than getting cut each year.