Mr. John D. Sullivan:

I have been fishing for 47 years and have been pelagic fishing for most of my life. Seán O'Donoghue is wrong to state that RSW 23 seemed to take over all the quotas. The RSW 23 vessels that emerged in 1995 evolved out of the pelagic sector but they were not the only boats pelagic fishing in the polyvalent sector. Between 30 and 60 other boats were pelagic fishing in the polyvalent sector. A rule was then introduced under which polyvalent vessels could not chill fish in tanks. Similar rules applied to farmers, with one farmer allowed to chill milk in a tank, while another farmer bringing his milk to the creamery could not chill his milk.

As far as I am concerned, it is completely wrong to claim that track record creates quotas. Fishermen go out to catch fish and we will catch any fish. In the 1990s, for example, we fished for tuna. We make a living out of fishing and it is wrong that we do not get a fair share of the quota afterwards. The tuna quota allocated to 17 or 18 polyvalent vessels - I believe there were 26 vessels in that fishery in the period from 1988 to 2002 when drift netting was stopped - has built up to 2,600 tonnes.

However, in 2001, the then Minister of State at the Deputy of the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr. Hugh Byrne, said:

Since the drift net ban and a four year phase out period were agreed by the Council in 1998, 18 vessels owned by 14 fishermen were licensed to fish by drift net. They caught more tuna in each year of the phase out period than in any year prior to the agreement. These owners are beneficiaries of the 18 licences granted to prosecute the annual £7 million fishery. The increased numbers of licences for other fishing methods will mean that 50 vessels will participate in future fishing.

The then Minister of State increased the number of licences from 18 to 50. He said that "the benefits of this lucrative fishery will be spread more widely throughout the fishing community" but he did not take into account the track record of the men who put the tuna quota in place. We were cast aside.

I do not know what they are saying about scad. Every polyvalent boat was entitled to catch scad, horse mackerel and blue whiting up to 2007 or 2008 when the policies came in. It was a case of here we go again. The cards were dealt and RSW got 91%, 97% and 95%. That is what happened. We were treated like second-class citizens. Speakers have mentioned investment. I invested €7 million in a vessel in 2004 but the vessel in Castletownbere was tied to the pier for four months and my partner vessel was tied up for six months because they did not want us to put fish into tanks. It was anti-competitive. There was a policy to stop us going ahead. There was a policy that we would have second-class fish in the market and we would not get the price for it. There was a policy to tie us up and put us and out of business. Many other polyvalent boats were tied up over shortage of capacity.

On the other side, in 1997 or 1998, there were seven boats within the RSW sector that were newly built and had huge capacity to carry fish on temporary licences. They came in under the safety tonnage provision. In 2002, they had to buy tonnage out of the polyvalent sector. They were allowed to buy tonnage out of the polyvalent sector to rectify that but in the meantime, if many other polyvalent boats were short 1 kW or one tonne, they would be tied to the pier. In the interim, they were saying they could not allow this type of capacity. In 2001, a massive new vessel - the Atlantic Dawn- came to Ireland. It was 14,400 gross tons, GTs, and a new international segment was created for it. This 14,400 GTs came out of thin air. When the boat was sold to the Dutch in 2007, that tonnage was then brought into the RSW sector. Why was it not brought into every sector? It did not belong to the RSW sector. This was a completely separate sector. There was no consultation with the industry. The rest of the RSW boats are allowed to buy this tonnage and get bigger and bigger while polyvalent boats have been treated as second-class vessels.

I am chairman of the Castletownbere Fishermen's Co-Operative Society limited. We depend on mackerel fishing for jobs there, as do the factories in Baltimore, Rossaveal, Dingle and many smaller factories in Killybegs, but we cannot get access to 87% of the quota. They flay over 80% of that quota because the factories own the boats. Boats own factories in Killybegs and more luck to them. I think Mr. O'Donoghue is wrong to think that there were only 23 vessels fishing pelagic species back in 1995 and that they were extracted. There was no industry consultation. I attended at an sea fisheries liaison group, SFLG, meeting in the south west at that time - Jason Whooley was there - and I asked Cecil Beamish what the criteria to join this club were because I was involved in pelagic fishing as well. I am still waiting for it. There were no public criteria setting out how one could get into this sector. I will leave it at that.