Mr. Greg Casey:

I mentioned one fundamental issue regarding the operation of the Common Fisheries Policy, namely, that of the baseline which sometimes goes as far as 20 miles out to sea along the west and south-west coast and our inland waters inside it. There is a second and more fundamental issue which the committee should consider and possibly seek legal advice on. That issue is whether Ireland ever agreed to the 200 mile exclusive fishery limits of the State, whether by signing up to an EU treaty, voting on it or otherwise. Many people think the damage was done in 1972. In fact, a statutory instrument extended our fishing rights out to 200 miles from the baseline in November 1976. That was six years before the 1982 signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which extended the exclusive fishery limits of states out to 200 miles. Ireland did not ratify that convention until the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006. In the context of the various treaties Ireland has signed during its membership of the EU, did it ever agree to give the EU the waters between the then six-mile limit and the 200-mile limit under the Common Fisheries Policy? There is a very strong argument that it never did.