Mr. John Tattan:

I will speak about a small issue - most of it has been covered at this stage - namely fairness and justice for the Irish fishing fleet and fishing industry. I draw the committee's attention to one species of fish, that is, black sole in the Celtic Sea. The TAC for 2020 is 1,337 tonnes, of which Belgium has 59% or 780 tonnes while Ireland has 3% or 39 tonnes. Where is the justice in that for Irish fishermen? I draw the committee's attention to another fish, namely north-west waters hake. As Mr. Murphy said, and as is stated in our submission, the TAC is 44,000 tonnes of which France has 19,966 tonnes or 45%, while Ireland has 2,383 tonnes or 5%, the UK has 8,831 tonnes and Spain has 12,756 tonnes or 28%. I want to know what the justification for these quotas is. With regard to monkfish, we have 7% of it and France has a whopping 56%. I would like to have that noted.

On the decommissioning scheme, fishermen have agreed to decommission their vessels for lack of fish and for other reasons. Why should these good vessels be broken up when some could be used for offshore windfarms, guard duty work and so on? Why should we punish the families for not having the fish?