Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Kelly. My knowledge of this issue was severely lacking until I met him a month or six weeks ago. He has presented a very detailed and comprehensive paper to us. It is very thought-provoking, and he expresses a lot of knowledge of the topic. We thank him for that.

Some of the points made by Mr. Kelly are at odds with what we understood to be the position. I am old enough to remember Mark Clinton and Michael O'Kennedy as Ministers for agriculture. Their job was to come home with the beef, to use a euphemism, and if they did not they were slated at domestic level. It was a triumph if they came home with allowances for increases in catch and potential catches and agreements on the price of milk which might amount to two pence per gallon at the time.

I do not want to misquote Mr. Kelly. Have we ignored well formulated scientific advice over a long period of time? Have we acted contrary to that advice? Have we failed to comply with our legal obligations? We are generally brought before the European Court of Justice, ECJ, if that is the case, or alternatively an infringement procedure of some description is initiated at EU level by the Commission or another body.

Is the witness suggesting that the measures, in the context of economic arguments prepared by BIM which were based on the sustainability impact assessment, are not sufficient or are deficient, and are in fact unbalanced because they fail to take into account the counter-arguments on sustainability the witness has made? He has said that the greater the level of sustainability achieved the better the opportunity for fishermen to harvest more fish and achieve a greater output, resulting in an increased income. I may well be misinterpreting the witness; if I am he can correct me.

Is it the case, as Mr. Kelly has argued, that the Government has breached its commitments on MSY in the CFP? I have no degree of expertise in this area, so I ask Mr. Kelly to forgive me for asking questions he may think are irrelevant or simple. Do I understand it that the MSY is, in effect, a very good management tool that could lead to a significant increase in income for fishermen, as opposed to the current system? While it appears that there has been some improvement in TAC over the last five years, how much more does Mr. Kelly believe can be achieved? What should the Minister do when setting the TAC?

What can the Department do to assess the TACs? Mr. Kelly said November is the critical month and that is why he is here. He is concerned about the lack of transparency in how the TACs are set and the deliberative process in which the Department engages in achieving them. He wants to see how they are formulated in respect of the overall CFP and, in particular, how they relate to the MSY. Am I correct in saying there is a correlation between the two? What questions should we raise with the Minister when he comes before the committee to present the sustainability impact assessment?