Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In response to Deputy Mac Lochlainn, that is exactly my point. He referred to 1 January 2021 and it was Christmas Eve, 24 December, when that historic impact happened in regard to Brexit. The Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, and I were meeting fisher representatives the day after St. Stephen's Day dealing with the issue. Indeed, if we went back, the weekend before Christmas Eve was when it broke across Europe as to what the challenge facing our fishing industry actually was. The Deputy will remember many of the national fishery representatives on the national media that weekend explaining the plight they were in, the plight I was working with my colleagues at Government level to try to address. As the Deputy said, it was two weeks later when we got the first comment from him, despite the fact that it was a monumental moment in our fishing history. That was the way the Deputy was standing up for our fishing representatives at the time.