Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have been to the vast majority of ports and harbours in the country and held meetings with fishers, online at first and then, following my appointment as Minister, at pier sides throughout the country where I listened to fishers directly. I have been listening very carefully and very much understand the pressure on fishermen and the massive challenge we have. If the Deputy had been listening to me, he would have found that I did not say in any way that anyone is happy about where we are at.

I do not know how the Deputy would come to that conclusion from what I have been saying. I have been crystal clear on the massive challenge and the significant hit the sector has taken from Brexit. My sole purpose as Minister has been to try to protect the sector against that in the first instance and then to work with it to address the issue afterwards, particularly through the task force and working directly with fishers and their representatives.

I was in the Dáil yesterday when the committee was meeting. Last week, I met all of the CEOs and all the producer organisations, including the Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation, which I appointed as a producer organisation in the past year. I have a meeting with them again tomorrow and I have been meeting them regularly during this process.

The Deputy used the word "chirpy". I do not understand how, if he had been listening, he could find anything "chirpy" about the situation we are in. It is a massive challenge on which all of us are working. I am leading out in every way I can to try to address the situation. I have brought together all of the leading voices among our fisher representatives to best advise on how we deal with the challenges we have, strengthen our position in the years ahead and deal with the immediate challenge of the impact on quota.

On the figures, this is not a matter on which people gather around the table and barter to decide what the figure is. It has to be done on the basis of science and data. That is what is important. The 15% figure the Deputy used is based on a stock book assessment of the total figures for any fish for which we have a quota toehold, regardless of which waters it is in, whether it is the North Sea, the north Atlantic, our 200-mile zone, the Celtic Sea, the Channel or the Bay of Biscay. It looks at every single stock we have any share in and then looks at the overall share we have and takes a percentage of that. It does not look at what is caught in our 200-mile exclusive economic zone, EEZ. It is the best assessment possible in relation to what is caught in our EEZ.

As I said in the Dáil earlier today, the Marine Institute's total assessment of the value of what is caught in our EEZ is €278 million, of which €106 million is caught by the Irish fleet, amounting to a value of 38%. That is based on the Marine Institute's figures and assessment. That represents two thirds of the total fish that we catch. We catch another one third of our fish outside of our 200-mile EEZ. Many of them are caught off the north coast of Scotland, the Celtic Sea and further south. That is the position. It is my objective to do all I can to try to increase that.

People will refer to other European fleets and the situation they are in. We have seen decommissioning take place in France and Spain arising from the Brexit agreement. There has not been a change or adjustment to the relative size of member states' quotas since the quotas were first put in place when relative stability was first struck in the early 1980s. There has not been any change. It is not that one member state's quota has gone up and another's has gone down in that time. Every member state has remained stuck to that relative stability struck in the early 1980s.

The Brexit adjustment and impact are the big factors that have caused an adjustment. That has been central to everything I have done throughout this process. I have been listening clearly to fishers and will continue to do so. As I said to Deputy Browne earlier in the Dáil, at the time of Brexit when I was fighting that cause on behalf of fishers, it took about two weeks before Sinn Féin made any public comment. Brexit had the single biggest impact to our fisheries and quotas in the history of the European Union and it was two weeks before there was any comment from Deputy Mac Lochlainn or anyone else in Sinn Féin on it. Now that the storm has passed and we are trying to deal with and fix the problem, the Deputy turns up and sells himself as standing up for fishermen. When the battle was taking place, the Deputy was not seen for two weeks. However, we all have to work together to address this issue.

My only purpose is to recognise the massive challenge the sector has and work with it to try to improve our position.

That is why I set up the task force. Nobody would have been happy with the situation we were in but everybody has to show leadership in terms of recognising the challenge and looking at the best way to strengthen our position coming out of that. That is what those who worked on that task force did and put massive work and effort into. It is something I recognise and I will do all I can to back those ideas and proposals. I am still not clear on whether Sinn Féin backs the report of the sea fisheries task force. After the hour and a half of debate in the Dáil today, I was none the wiser. They might be able to clarify that in due course. I thank the Deputy for his contribution today.