On that basis, I would not have supported the old agreement and I certainly would not support putting something similar in place.

There was no consultation on this issue at all. It is a new Bill. It is very wide-ranging. Owned and operated in Northern Ireland means that anyone in the EU with a vessel or number of vessels, a conglomerate, could technically set up a company in Northern Ireland and have full access to our six-mile limit. One must remember that our own pelagic vessels are excluded, they have to stay out at 12 miles. There are vessels in the north west, for example, that fish under the cod recovery system. They have a track record between 2005 and 2008, and only they can fish when they leave the pier at Greencastle, for example. This Bill, as currently drafted, would allow vessels from Northern Ireland that do not have that track record to fish in the Irish Sea and in area 6A, putting most of our fleet at a disadvantage. We are talking about Brexit here. Brexit is under way. We need access to UK waters, at least 40% of our quota is fished there. That is a lot of our quota. We cannot start giving away our poker chips in advance, we need something to negotiate with. That is an important area of water. There are some vessels from Northern Ireland that want to fish prawns in Dundalk Bay, for example. They will want that. I do not mind if Ireland gives it to them two years out from now, with consultation and with proper strategic thinking around why we are doing it. We need to get something for this. We are either talking about stakeholders and the national interest or about political interest. I am only interested in the former.

Senator Mac Lochlainn's was a loaded question and a difficult one. This meeting is publicly broadcast. Going back a couple of years, we had a penalty points system for fishing vessels as part of EU legislation, a control regulation. Technically it was something similar to the penalty points system for driving offences. It was very pernicious in that one was awarded the points before going to court. The way the legislation was drafted, one still retained the points even if one was exonerated by one's peers in court. That was bad enough but after the structural instrument was struck down and they came up with another structural instrument which was more or less the same thing again. They did not learn from what happened the first time. As an industry, myself and my colleagues were psychologically very deflated that our own State would impose such legislation on us. They had to have a penalty points system and I would accept that if it was after one had been tried and convicted. Penalty points are coming back on the agenda. I have heard whispers that there will be a political engagement process. What is happening around this Bill has probably run a flag up a pole in this regard and the Department and maybe a Minister or two are thinking that they need to engage. I would not go so far as to say that everything is deliberate but there has been a lack of engagement with us. It might be a recommendation from this committee that when a Bill is being drafted, while the Attorney General is involved as is the Department and they have a drafting committee, it would be an idea if at least somebody from the industry with expertise could go on to that committee to say when things do not make sense or will not work. There are probably a lot more experts on the outside that have to deal with the issues than there are on the inside creating them for us.