Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to participate in the meeting as I am not a member of this committee. I got the document just before the meeting started and have looked through it while the discussion was ongoing. We have had a number of debates on the floor of the Dáil on fishing, yesterday included. This is a very serious situation for the fishing industry. It is debatable how it can survive the actual cuts that are talked about here. It definitely will not survive in its current state. The industry would have to decline significantly to be viable with these cuts.

I am aware that the opening statement is being taken as read. The Minister's opening statement states in the first paragraph that this "means that Ireland's key Brexit objectives have been achieved". Do we take it that fishing was not one of the key objectives? If that is the case, fair enough, but the Government should say that rather than leading the fishing organisations and the fishermen astray in relation to it. Our key Brexit objectives may have been achieved but fishing has been left to one side and left on its own.

The Minister outlined yesterday in the Dáil, and in his opening statement today, a meeting he had with Michel Barnier and the EU fisheries Commissioner in recent days at which the Minister outlined Ireland's disappointment at the outcome of the negotiations. In the Dáil debate yesterday and in today's statement, the Minister has not outlined what their response was. I believe that how the EU has responded to Ireland's concerns would be the most interesting part of it. The reality is that the Minister will have to go back into the Common Fisheries Policy negotiations to try to get, for the first time ever, a fair deal for Ireland. It is clear, from the way the rest of the countries dealt with the Brexit negotiations, that Ireland is being left behind with regard to fairness and equity within the EU, and always has been. The Minister must undo that in the upcoming negotiations. I wish him well and good luck with that because it is vitally important for our communities right along the coast.

In his opening statement the Minister also referred to the task force he intends to establish to look at the future of the fishing industry. I ask that he would consider having representatives of crews, not the vessel owners but the actual crews, and representatives of workers in the fish factories to participate in the task force. Their voices are, to a large extent, lost in this discussion and they are the people who will be immediately impacted in respect of the changes taking place.