Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, here this evening. He has an unenviable task. I have been involved in politics for about 39 years. I remember back in the mid-1980s on the coastal management committee for Cork county and whatever. From what I read here, in many ways the Minister is caught by a straitjacket and there is little wriggle room. We cannot expect him to work miracles because the constraints that are there have gradually built up over the last three decades. They have not happened overnight. I have no doubt that the Minister wears the green jersey when he goes to Europe or when he goes to negotiate with the UK. I absolutely agree that Brexit was an unfortunate event that caused extra problems for the Irish fishing fleet.

I will not go over ground which others have dealt with; repetition is of no value. I have a few questions. On decommissioning, I live in Schull out of which eight or nine trawlers were fishing 20 years ago but now, there is one small vessel of about 65 ft. which is roughly 21 m or 22 m. I am being told by three or four of these trawler owners, some of them coming up to pension age who would like to get out and maybe their sons or nephews or whoever may not be that keen or interested in taking the baton, that they are not too enamoured by the decommissioning scheme that is there. One guy who I sat down with for a while said he was interested but he found the rules surrounding it were very complex and that his conclusion, after a lot of deliberation by himself and his family, was that he was as well off staying in fishing and working away on his 60 ft. or 70 ft. boat which is about 25 m.

As he is getting older, I reckoned he would grab the decommissioning with both hands, saying it was something for him at the end of 45 years of fishing and that he would like to move on. Why is the scheme so complicated and unappealing to average punters? I do not think these three trawlermen or fishers that we might ask are exaggerating. In my view, they would get out but they are not enamoured with the scheme.

We are dealing here with the total allowable catch. I am concerned about the Atlanto-Scandian herring, where there was a 24% decrease in 2023. Ireland has a relatively small share of the stock. The Minister also mentioned the way in which the mackerel spawn off our south-west coast and move north. As someone who grew up on fishing boats, more or less, I believe the mackerel shoals have diminished substantially over the past two or three decades. I was out this year hobby fishing. There was a time when if you went out in September, you could fill the small boat with fine mackerel. I now find that there are only small minnows. I read recently that, particularly off the Scottish coast and up north, they never envisaged such catches of mackerel and herring in quantities. I raise that because the Minister obviously cannot control that. Do the Minister and his officials believe that global warming has an impact on how our fishing stocks are going? There is a view that even a half percentage point rise in sea temperature can have a great impact on several fish stocks. Is that something the Department is cognisant of? What are the Minister’s views on that? I do not wish to make this into a big green issue. I am just going by my observations and my understanding of the industry, in my own tuppenny-ha'penny way, over the past three or four decades.

I realise the Minister is also restrained by advice from ICES and total allowable catches but each year - I have noticed this well before this committee, back in my old days as a councillor - it seems the share of the pie for Irish fishers is narrowing. My colleague mentioned the massive factory ships from eastern Europe that are 140 m long. They are extraordinary. How are those massive trawlers monitored? These vessels can go out in force 8 or force 10 storms and are not impacted. Most other vessels would pull into Dunmore East, Castletownbere or Dingle on the south coast. How are these vessels being monitored? In this instance I may perhaps be paranoid but I doubt it. These massive trawlers are difficult to control. Are they ever boarded? Where do they land their catches? What controls has our little nation within the European Union to monitor what they do in Irish waters and indeed in any waters within Europe? That is a worrying issue.

The fuel subsidy was mentioned earlier. I would be more concerned that this has a greater impact on small inshore fishers, fishing for crab, prawns or scallops, than on the bigger boats. I am not saying that in any way to divide the issue. Is there any possibility that this fuel subsidy could be retained? It reduced and fell away because it was brought in on a short-term basis but there is an argument that this subsidy could be allowed to continue, not to the same capacity but in some measure that would give the fishers a real chance to survive.

I would also like to hear the views of the Minister and his officials on smaller ports such as Schull where I live, and Union Hall to a certain extent, where traditional fishing boats that fished out of there created a lot of employment over the years. Some was seasonal but there was reasonably good money made and many a mouth was fed from the income from fishing in these areas. These smaller ports are now being absorbed by the bigger boats. Unless replaced by a substantial-sized trawler that can fish anywhere off Europe, these relatively small vessels might be curtailed in going 80 or 100 miles off the coastline and have a battle to survive. Unless a fisher has a powerful oceangoing vessel, it is going to be more and more difficult to survive.

I came across an interesting issue recently. I grew up on the shores of Bantry Bay. We sometimes had issues with the British authorities, going back to the 19th century. The biggest fleet that the mighty kingdom ever produced was able to shelter in Bantry Bay because of the depth of the water, its width and its size. In about 1850 or 1860, they imposed a rule that no fishing or trawling was allowed between sunset and sunrise. I am sure it applied to more ports other than Bantry Bay. Recently I was doing research. I was perplexed by the fact that some big trawlers can go into small inlets fishing for sprat, which in essence are not valuable fish. However, the big trawlers annoy many of the smaller fishers who are being pushed onto shore. This was contested and apparently went to the EU. I am not sure whether it was the European Court of Justice or the EU. The rule that was there for possibly 150 years was set aside and the EU decision was that these guys can go up into the Lee Valley and the river estuaries. What was the common sense behind that? Members may not be aware of it but if that is the type of indication we get from Europe, whether in its courts or by the Commission, undoing sensible provisions that already existed for many years, long before my time, it begs the question about the sustainability of inshore fishers and about what their future is.

I wish the Minister well. He has a difficult job. As Minister, apart from health and housing, he has the toughest portfolio in the Cabinet.