Mr. Seán O'Donoghue:

I do not mind taking them. Deputy Mac Lochlainn is absolutely correct, but I really want to emphasise that our first priority - and we are united in the industry - is to put this in simple terms. We need to get back our fish that we unfairly lost in the trade deal. We cannot get that off the UK now so it has to come from the other member states. The Deputy is quite correct: after that, a financial package will be done. I can tell the committee that the hundred-and-whatever million is just peanuts. It is an irrelevancy in trying to tackle the issue. I am sure the Commission will try to say, "We will give you a few more extra euro and that will solve the problem." It will not because we are not prepared to accept that we need to downsize our industries or indeed our communities. I fully agree that the task force needs to have a very clear vision as to how we will achieve what we need to achieve in redressing the imbalance. It has to be based on fact rather than fiction. The equalisation, the Hague preferences and the third-country negotiations all need to come into the mix.

This is where a task force - if it is worth its salt - will put very concrete things together. I assure the committee - and I meet my other three colleagues regularly - that we have a united front in terms of this and we agree with the committee on it. I am very concerned that a task force might end up being a talking shop. We cannot have that. That message must go out very clearly to everybody. The committee is right. If, at a second level after getting our fish back, there is a significant financial package as such, this is where the task force can come in and say "This is the way it should be done". We have bitter experience in terms of the useless tie-up scheme we got in respect of Covid. If that is the road we are going down, I do not want any hand, act or part in it.