Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It would be a disaster to implement this in full. The social consequences for our coastal communities, as the Minister is well aware, and as all of us from coastal areas are aware, will be significant. It is up to the Minister's negotiators to try to break the Commission's proposals down. We have all argued that the biggest problem for Irish fishermen, particularly those depending on whitefish and so forth, has been the lack of a quota and they have suffered greatly as a consequence of this. I would be very interested to know how the stakeholders, particularly the fishing organisations, have approached it. I assume they are up in arms over it, to put it mildly. No matter what it takes, the implementation of this will be detrimental to the coastal communities.