Dr. Cecil Beamish:

Deputy McConalogue asked whether there had been engagement with stakeholders. I outlined in my opening statement the various meetings that have taken place. We made a scientific presentation to the stakeholders and gave them the scientific documentation compiled by the Marine Institute. In broad terms, we are all pretty much on the same track. This matter is not controversial. It is more about trying to encourage this plan and get it in place, as much as we can. While there is some tailoring at the edges, in general, people want this because otherwise we will have a very rigid maximum sustainable yield way of managing and setting total allowable catches for all our stocks from 2020 onwards. That scenario could lead to awkward situations.

The technical measures are another important element although they always sound boring. These measures relate to what Deputy Pringle mentioned. They allow regional member states in a region in which they have an interest - in our case, France, Spain, the UK, Ireland, and perhaps Belgium and the Netherlands - to get together to set the conditions for fishing, for example, the mesh size of the gears and the selective escape arrangements. A decision may be taken not to fish in a certain area for a period, etc. Such matters can be unanimously agreed by the member states concerned. If it is in compliance with the basic EU regulation, the Commission will turn it into EU law, by a delegated Act, and that will be the law that governs the gear or technical aspects of fishing.

I will outline why this option is important. As we move towards the elimination of discards, and by that I mean we do not want fish caught, killed and thrown away, we equally do not want to catch fish that we do not want to catch, that are of no value and thus have to bring them back to the coast. Therefore, we want more selective fishing and fishermen want more selective fishing. For example, we have very high rates of mortality of young fish in certain fisheries. If young fish are being killed, there will not be an abundant stock. If we want to grow the stocks to secure higher quotas, etc., we must have selective fishing. If we want to bring home the big fish, we want selective fishing. The multi-annual plan creates the possibility for member states to move forward and set technical rules and selective gears. There is strong industry support in Ireland for moving forward with technical measures. We do not the stocks on which we are dependent to be damaged by heavy fishing of young fish, which are then discarded.