Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the invitation to attend. I represent a Border constituency like that of Deputy Mac Lochlainn and I am Chairman of a committee Deputy Mac Lochlainn serves on, the Joint Committee on the Implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. I am here today to show my appreciation of and concern for what is an issue that affects all of our island, even though we have different political administrations, North and South.

I welcome the Minister. The last time I spoke to him it turned out he had Covid but, thankfully, we were both wearing masks at the time and it was on a main street. I wish him well and I wish him success in the work he is doing. We would be very happy to familiarise ourselves, as a committee, with any issue we can articulate and support, and to try to get support, North and South. We all know fish know no borders. We have a border in this country and we must do our very best to alleviate the significant adverse impact Brexit is having on our communities and on our fisheries. I am speaking in that context. The Minister is very welcome to come before our committee at the appropriate time. I know Deputy Mac Lochlainn was anxious to articulate that our committee is extremely concerned and would love to be in involved in the appropriate way with any initiatives the Minister may have, or that we could possibly assist in, because we have representatives from other parties that are not represented in our Parliament. There are many people who want to see continued commercial success for the fisheries industry, North and South, if we can manage to hold a line that both parts of the island can support and articulate.