Mr. Patrick Murphy:

As Mr. O'Donoghue said, there would be a displacement of effort if England was to close its borders and every boat with an entitlement or track record of fishing in its waters had to go somewhere else. If a cow and calf were in a field in similar circumstances, they would both starve. As Mr. O'Donoghue said, it would have a knock-on effect on stocks and the level of fishing in certain areas. Again, it comes back to relative stability. The Common Fisheries Policy was built on the protection of stocks. If it continues, there is only one choice - we will have to take less. If we take less, that will call into question the viability of our fishing fleet across the board. As I said, if very valuable fishing areas suddenly lie inside the United Kingdom's borders, that will be a significant bargaining chip for it in terms of a trade-off on access. If Irish negotiators are not at the table, who will take the spoils? It is a major problem.

Another question was about the history of the sector. My father told me a story about when he began to fish in Howth. He remembered a time when fishermen caught and landed fish but they were not be paid because they did not have money to install the proper technologies on their boats. As Mr. O'Donoghue said, when they were offered a cheque to cash, the number of fish caught was sufficient to supply their markets. It was a catch-22.

The situation in fishing can be compared with that in the farming sector. When Ireland joined the European Union, a farmer who owned a 200 acre farm was only able to plough 20 acres with a horse. If today the same farmer owned a tractor with which he or she could plough 200 acres and was told that because he or she did not have a track record and did not cash a cheque, he or she would not be allowed to use the tractor to plough the 200 acres and would instead have to stick to ploughing 20 acres, it would be a hard pill to swallow.