Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We tend to ignore fish from a carbon capture perspective but they are integral to the ecosystem. I know there is a bit of a campaign to look at fish as carbon engineers. To maintain healthy fish stocks, it needs to be ensured that fishermen are not taking out more than the fish are able to reproduce themselves. One of the calls from NGOs on that, and in recognition of the importance of healthy fish stocks, is that they are looking for transparency around stock allocation. That is a big issue. I would have worked on the stock book that the Marine Institute do every year. It goes every year to International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, and there are negotiations but they are all done behind closed doors. There is zero transparency over the negotiations. What happens every year is that the scientific evidence goes in, and it says "This is how many fish; this is what you can take out in order to maintain a healthy fish stock," yet every year that is over-allocated. That has led to the point where we are now and I do not know how healthy any of our fish stocks are at this point. It is clear that we have not been managing them properly. Has the Minister any concerns about the lack of transparency? Does he believe something like that would be important so people in Ireland and in each country know how their public representatives are negotiating and what things are being taken into account when those allocations are being done and that transparency is important to enable that to happen.