Mr. John Ward:

My colleague from the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation, KFO, covered many of the points contained in the statement that I circulated to members. I will move on to decommissioning.

As far as the Irish fish producers are concerned, the decommissioning was agreed at the task force. While it is unfortunate and it is not something that our industry was hoping to achieve, it is something that was foisted upon us. We have a situation where we have a mismatch between the available quotas for our demersal fleet and the size of the fleet, and in that instance we would be tasked also by the European Commission to decommission. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil. We would like to see the Department think outside the box and find some way to bank some of this tonnage so it would leave an opportunity for young fishermen coming into the fleet in future years to be able to get tonnage. An unfortunate situation is created by decommissioning. Once this capacity is taken out of our fleet, it is gone forever and we cannot get it back. This is something that I would like to see the committee take on board.

I reiterate the comments that my colleague made about the mackerel situation. It is critical for Ireland in future years that the Commission acts by taking some steps against these countries which are declaring unilateral quotas. They will effectively destroy this mackerel fishery which is so very important to Irish fishermen.

The results of our recent task force should have empowered the Minister to seek some resolution from our European partners about the inordinate price that Ireland has paid for Brexit.

We, as an industry, are concerned that while in the past the European Council that happens in Brussels later this month was an opportunity for the Minister and his officials to barter and negotiate with our European partners on each others priorities, we now have a situation where most of the stocks that we are concerned about must be agreed, primarily with the UK in the EU-UK bilaterals, and we are very concerned that we have limited input to this process. It is something that we as an industry have to be very concerned about.

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to talk to the committee.