Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their attendance today and for their very comprehensive presentations. I will deal first with the voisinageissue. There has been quite a bit of concentration by all of the presenters on what the reinstatement of the agreement would mean. I ask the witnesses to elaborate further on their experience of what it has meant until now, in terms of its practical application. A number of witnesses made reference to the residency issue and pointed out that the terminology used in the proposed legislation is different to what was in the voisinagepreviously. I accept that point. If it was retained, as was the case before, would that in any way change their position? On the 75 ft. issue, my understanding is that when that was put to the Minister, his response was that there was no 75 ft. restriction in the previous voisinage.

I would ask them to come back on that and on where that 75 ft. restriction comes from, and in the event that it was and this proposal the Minister came forward with restricted it to within 75 ft., whether that would change their view on it.

The part of the country I come from is probably where there is a number of fishermen most affected by the implication of the Supreme Court decision where a number of people would be operating with Northern Irish licences and as a result, have been inhibited from fishing. I might address this matter in relation to inshore fishermen to Mr. Crowley. Certainly the thrust of his presentation is that there is in some way not a lot of sympathy for those who operate off Northern Irish or UK-based licences. I ask Mr. Crowley to elaborate on the position of those fishermen if the voisinageagreement is not reinstated. Overall, what is their understanding of the position in the event of the UK withdrawing entirely from the London fisheries agreement? Am I right in saying that would mean that any agreement that we would reinstate with them now would fall in that situation or would that potentially continue? I suppose my overall question there is the point that many are putting with regard to the scope of the Minister's proposal and the dangers involved in that in relation to vessels coming in, and their experience of how the scope of that tallies with the experience so far. There were particular issues on the impact on the mussel sector which led to this particular case and any comments on that as well would be welcome.

To move on to the issue of the mackerel quota, I understand the case being made by those in the whitefish fleet sector. Having said that, there is tradition here and the mackerel quota has been built up as a result of people having invested in and put hard work into this. Certainly, from the point of view of my own county of Donegal, the importance of the employment there to the county cannot be understated either. For those who are pushing this particular proposal, I would like them to comment further on how that would impact on the investors and the employment there because of the structure that is in place. I could not emphasise more the importance of that to my own county.

On the 27 vessels that are being mentioned in the context of the reallocating of the quota, I note the proposal to reallocate that whitefish to other smaller vessels. What is the commitment regarding those and can the witnesses elaborate on the disagreement among those 27 boats as to the proposals that Mr. Crowley is putting forward and their rationale for that?