Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy Mac Lochlainn said, there is undoubtedly an impact on our fishing sector as a result of Brexit. That was a tremendous concern of the fishing sector and the Government from the outset. That is why we worked so closely together throughout the process to ensure there was one united national voice. The Government and I worked with our counterparts in other European maritime states and the industry representatives worked with their counterparts. This was to ensure that the European approach was strong and resolute and that fishing was a key priority in the negotiations during the initial mandate and throughout the process. Key to this all along was ensuring that fisheries were discussed in terms of the wider trade agreement. That was essential in order to give us the strongest possible platform and to get a good outcome for the sector.

Deputy Mac Lochlainn will know we catch one third of our fish in UK waters. To have lost that in a no-deal scenario would have had a massive impact on our fishing sector and it would have had a significant impact in relation to displacement of other vessels in our waters.

The British negotiating stance was that they wanted to take back 100% the fish caught by EU fleets in their waters. The ultimate outcome was that 25% would be reallocated over the course of five years. The key thing all along was to ensure that this would be tied to other aspects of the trade agreement. That was something we pushed for and ensured was the case at all stages.

In the final analysis, the three outstanding issues in the last couple of weeks, as we all know, were the issues of governance, a level playing field and fish. In terms of time, it was essential to ensure fish would stay tied in the future to other aspects of the trade agreement. There are conditions in there too to continue to ensure, for example, in relation to energy markets, that it stays tied. We would certainly have liked even more leverage but our key objective in everything we did was using that leverage throughout and ensuring that there would be leverage going forward too.

The deal will see a 15% impact on our overall national quota between now and 2026. That is certainly higher than other EU member states will be taking. Germany is similar in terms of the proportion of its fleet but for other nations, it is less, significantly so for some of them. I am certainly not happy with that situation. It is not an outcome I wanted or we fought for. We knew we were the nation that was most endangered from a fisheries point of view because more than any EU member state we share more of our species with the UK. The species that are important to us are the species that are most important to the UK as well and they were coming after them. We were always very much concerned by that.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Simon Coveney, the Taoiseach and I, in all our respective engagements, had very clearly pushed the principle of burden sharing and fair burden sharing in the outcome of the agreement. The outcome is not a fair reflection of burden sharing. It impacts more on our fisheries sector and that is something I have taken up, very strongly, with the Commission. On Tuesday morning I met with the task force chair, Michael Barnier, and the fisheries Commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevicius, and made it very clear that we were not at all happy about the additional burden we are taking. I will be taking every opportunity to try to address that and across Government, that will be a key priority.

We are at one with the fishing sector in the objective of supporting it and emphasising the fact that this outcome does not reflect the principle of burden sharing. I fully understand and am with it in that we want this raw material of fish for our sector which feeds into our processing sector, into jobs and into the wider economy. That is our first objective. We all know how challenging that battle always is at European level because every other country is fighting its corner as well but I certainly will be taking up that battle in every way I can, working alongside the fisheries sector.