Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will move on to blue whiting. There have been a couple of negotiations over the past two years. I have had success working at European level on reducing the transfer of blue whiting. The year previous to the first year I started negotiations, the transfer had been at the rate of 9%. We successfully reduced that to 4% the year before last. We held it at that for 2022. Last year, the total value of the blue whiting transfer to Norway was 31,500 tonnes. If it had been at the previous rate of 9%, it would have been a transfer of nearly 70,000 tonnes. We managed to get it reduced from around 70,000 tonnes to approximately 31,000 tonnes. That meant we had roughly an extra 10,000 tonnes was available to our fisheries nationally last year and this year. This is done every year. It is a negotiation every year. We are in a new mix and in a new battle, a new fight, and a new engagement. There is no guarantee we will have the success we have had the past two years.

The backdrop starting off this year is that the scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, for blue whiting is that it should increase by 81%. It is a good starting position. All things being equal, the quota will go up by 81% this year compared to last year. There is this issue around the transfer at Norway and how that evolves. There is also the issue of where Norwegian fishermen can get access to fish their quota. The transfer will change their quota but they also have a quota of their own. As with mackerel where we fish a lot of our quota in the north sea and outside Irish waters, other fleets would fish blue whiting in our waters. That is up for debate as well. My objective is to get the best outcome we can for ourselves to restrict the transfer to the lowest possible. Our starting negotiating position was to hold it at what it was at last year. That was 31,000 tonnes. That would represent a percentage reduction from the 4% transfer last year because the overall advice is for an 81% increase in quota. That is our starting position. It will be difficult to hold, but that is our negotiating position. Our negotiating position is also to restrict any access from Norway into Irish waters to fish their share. This is something that will evolve and it is ongoing. There were negotiations last week that broke down without conclusion. They are ongoing again this week but we are holding a very hard line. We will continue battling hard to get a good outcome. Ultimately, the Norwegian issue in terms of blue whiting, and all of the other issues, go into an overall package and ultimately there is qualified majority voting at European level, so we have to engage with other member states and stay relevant to the negotiation too. If we make ourselves irrelevant to the negotiations by putting ourselves beyond the pale, we will not be part of reaching an ultimate agreement and other member states will not pay as much attention to us. We have to get the best outcome we can but that also involves staying in the mix. That is the objective and that is where we are at.