Mr. Patrick Murphy:

I thank the Chairman and committee members for inviting us here today to give our views on what is important in rural Ireland. We represent the fishing industry and for us, there is no more rural industry in the country than fishing. It is on the periphery, outside of land and on the water. It provides jobs not only on the vessels, but onshore in processing factories, shops and at fish counters, as well as for lorry drivers, net handlers and repairers and so forth. The list goes on and on.

It is in parts of our country that do not see very much enterprise. It is also in our island communities and is a baseline for creating tourism opportunities. It brings life, work and resources into the areas and backs up the fabric of rural communities along our coastlines. The possibilities created by fish farms are endless. The fishing industry contributes €700 million annually and employs 11,000 people all around the coastline.

We believe the recently-proposed decommissioning scheme would be the death knell for many communities along our coastline. The scheme is targeted at vessels ranging from 12 m to 23 m. These are the boats one sees in small harbours and are usually family-owned businesses. They form the backbone of island communities. If one were to take these boats out of the fleet, it would cause irreparable damage that could not be reversed. Once these boats and the jobs they support are gone, they are gone. They cannot be brought back again. It is a decommissioning scheme.

The proposal is that 30 vessels would have to go to correct the imbalance that the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, STECF has said is in our fishing industry. We would lose 30 boats out of 176 vessels, that is, 20% of that fleet would have to go to correct the imbalance in our fleet. We consider that it is worth investigating to see if there are other solutions that we could find to stop this from happening. The Irish South & West Fish Producers Organisation proposed that when the opportunity would arise in certain circumstances, we should look at all avenues. On foot of the uplift in the mackerel fishery, there was an increase of 10,000 tonnes and we asked for the additional quota to be allocated to the whitefish sector, that is, to the boats that have dual entitlements for whitefish and mackerel fishing. The mackerel fishermen would forego their whitefish entitlements and it could be given to others within the whitefish fleet. We conducted studies which showed at a minimum, it would mean a tonne of fish for every single licensed whitefish vessel operating in our coastal communities.

I thank the Chairman for giving me the opportunity to make my opening address.