Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Is there a way to short-circuit that? One of the recommendations of the sub-committee in its report was that impact data should be made available. If there is information that supports drift net fishing or heritage licences, as referred to by Deputy Ferris, and these were to be permitted on a trial basis the impact data should be made available. Fish numbers in every river, particularly salmon in this case, need to be counted. There was inadequate collection of data in the first place to establish the facts. The Marine Institute is a sophisticated organisation which should be able to gather very accurate data if tasked to do so. The graph shown for Northern Ireland demonstrates how a thing can be weighted totally by one major vessel. In the pelagic fleet in Ireland, I suppose there is a bit of that as well.

The committee would favour changing that balance. If that was the case, it is likely there would be a lower risk of reducing stocks below maximum sustainable yield, MSY, perhaps substantially. There are people who would totally disagree with this.

I agree with Deputy Harrington that we cannot do this in isolation. The European fleets are enormous compared to what we have. That is the bottom line here. Nobody disagrees with the principle of conservation because it is in everybody's interest.

It would be very interesting to see the research and the rationale behind the study on the 43 stocks.

It has been a very frustrating process for fishermen to see that the work they have put in over the best part of 15 years of conservation measures has not led to a corresponding benefit in terms of how they can approach the fishery in 2014. The precautionary principle is by definition always going to be behind the curve. If we are not going to bring the industry with us on these decisions, particularly the ones on the maximum sustainable yield, I do not know how we can enforce the kind of sustainable fisheries effort that is being advocated here. The scientific community and the decision-making bodies, the ISIS-Fish software developers and the Commission need to understand that. It is the same story whether it is Ireland, Spain or wherever. There has been a huge fracture in trust between the scientific community and the coastal communities that depend on fishing.