Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank members for opportunity to present the sustainability impact assessment of fishing opportunities for 2024 to this committee. I am joined by Mr. Dominic Rihan from Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM, Ms Sinéad McSherry, assistant secretary, Ms Anna O'Sullivan, principal officer, and Mr. Ciaran Kelly from the Marine Institute.

The UK’s withdrawal from the European Union has led to significant changes to the processes involved in setting total allowable catches, or TACs, for the majority of our commercial stocks.

Approximately 40 of Ireland's fish stocks, which were previously exclusively EU resources, are now shared resources, most shared with the UK. The Commission has sole competence to negotiate with third countries on behalf of the EU on the setting of fishing opportunities for shared stocks, and that now includes the UK. The bilateral negotiations between the Commission on behalf of the EU and the UK began yesterday in London, and I will go into more detail on those consultations in a moment. The online opening plenary session for those negotiations was held this morning. Member state officials and stakeholders, including Irish stakeholders, were able to attend virtually and hear the opening statements by the UK and the Commission negotiators.

Based on the experience of the past years post Brexit, and the subsequent changes in the procedures for setting fishing opportunities for the EU, I again decided to commence this sustainability impact assessment process at the start of September. This sustainability impact assessment is an essential step in Ireland's preparation for the total allowable catch setting process, and I wanted to have the process completed in time for the EU-UK negotiations. The benefits of carrying out the process at this stage is that it allows for input from stakeholders, analysis by BIM and the Marine Institute and the views of the Oireachtas in time for the start of the TAC setting process. I decided to again use the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, scientific advice as the basis for this year's sustainability impact assessment, ICES being responsible for the scientific advice internationally with regard to the health of fish stocks. That ICES advice forms the basis of the scientific advice used by the European Commission and, therefore, the advice for the relevant stocks provides suitable guidance for the TAC figures which would normally be proposed by the Commission. This allowed for a meaningful public consultation and realistic engagement with our stakeholders. It also allowed for the Marine Institute and BIM to produce the biological and socio-economic assessments.

The waters surrounding Ireland contain some of the most productive fishing grounds in the EU. We have a duty of care and a national self-interest to protect their biological richness and, as such, they must be managed responsibly and sustainably. My Department, along with BIM, continues to work together with fishers to adapt and to develop the most selective and sustainable fishing methods. The continued efforts and commitment of our fishers in this matter have been very important. Progress is being achieved in respect of the sustainability of the fish stocks. For 2023, 39 stocks of interest to Ireland are fished at or below the maximum sustainable yield. Fishing at maximum sustainable yield, MSY, is the largest average catch or yield that can continuously be taken from a stock under existing environmental conditions. In 2013 only 20 stocks were fished at this sustainable level. The number of stocks fished above MSY is 17 in 2023, and this move towards sustainability is improving over time. This is a significant achievement, and Ireland will continue to work with stakeholders, the Commission, other member states and third countries to build on this tangible progress to achieve our objectives of healthy fish stocks and sustainable fishing.

I will now touch on the EU-UK consultations. As I mentioned earlier, the bilateral consultations with the UK for next year for shared stocks began yesterday. The sustainability impact assessment process and the committee's input today will help to develop Ireland's position during these upcoming negotiations. The negotiations will be led by the European Commission, and my team and I will be fully engaged at EU level to ensure that Ireland's interests are recognised and pursued with Commissioner Sinkeviius and his team. We are hopeful that agreement can be reached in time to allow the outcome to be discussed and decided at the fisheries council on 11 and 12 December and to feed into the total allowable catch and quota regulation for 2024. I will be insisting that the Hague preferences are applied at the December council for the relevant fish stocks. If an EU-UK agreement is not secured, a contingency plan is in place to ensure that fishing can continue at the start of next year. Under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, in the event that agreement with the UK cannot be reached by 20 December, each party may set provisional total allowable catches applying from 1 January at the level advised by ICES. In previous years, the Commission developed a plan for provisional TACs for the first three months of the year. That saw TACs for most stocks set at 25% of the previous year's total allowable catch level, with the full total allowable catch applied for coastal state stocks such as mackerel and blue whiting. While this situation is not ideal, if needed, it provides certainty and continuity for our fishing industry in the new year.

With regard to coastal states, management arrangements for three migratory species in the north-east Atlantic in which Ireland has an interest, namely blue whiting, Atlanto-Scandian herring and mackerel, are negotiated by means of a coastal states framework between the parties in whose waters significant concentrations of these stocks are to be found and which have normally had a track record in fishing them. The annual coastal states negotiations for 2024 took place in London earlier in October. The coastal states agreed on setting the TAC for mackerel at 739,000 tonnes, in line with the ICES advice. The ICES advice is based on the MSY and represents a reduction of 5% compared with the 2023 TAC. The TAC for blue whiting was set at 1,529,000 tonnes, again in line with ICES advice. This is a 12.5% increase on last year. Agreement was reached on the setting of the TAC for Atlanto-Scandian herring at 390,000 tonnes. This is a 24% decrease on last year. The EU and Ireland have a relatively small share of this stock. There are currently no international sharing arrangements in place for these three coastal state stocks. Discussions among the coastal state parties on new sharing arrangements continued throughout 2023. I have been clear on the need to agree on sharing arrangements that respect the EU's and, in turn, Ireland's proper share of the global TAC for these stocks. We continue to oppose the setting of unacceptably high unilateral quotas for mackerel by a number of third countries. I have articulated our serious concerns on this issue at the EU fisheries council and directly to Commissioner Sinkeviius. If this unacceptable behaviour continues in 2024, the EU must redouble its efforts and use all available tools in order that there are real and effective consequences for such behaviour.

In order for the sustainability impact assessment to be carried out, the ICES scientific advice for the stocks has been used as a basis for the assessment. As part of the assessment, an open consultation process was initiated, whereby stakeholders were asked to submit their comments and observations on the ICES advice for fish stocks for next year and on the European Commission's communication, "Towards more sustainable fishing in the EU: state of play and orientations for 2023", and its accompanying staff working document. From 1 September past, an online web portal, fishingnet.ie, was activated to enable the transmission of electronic submissions for consideration. Three submissions to the public consultation were received and will be published on the fishingnet.iewebsite.

In addition to the written submissions, I convened a meeting of stakeholders including fishing industry representatives and environmental NGOs on 17 October. The purpose of that meeting was to give a further opportunity to stakeholders to outline their positions on the many aspects of the communication and the scientific advice. I thank all the stakeholders for their contributions to this impact assessment. The stakeholders set out a range of positions; however, there were also many commonalities. I agree with many of the sentiments expressed through the consultation process, which all, I consider, have the same objective of sustainable fishing and the protection of our fishing resource and our marine ecosystem for future generations. There is a clear call for adherence to the advice on setting total allowable catches in accordance with fishing at maximum sustainable yield. We must also make use of the provisions of the western waters multi-annual plan to deal with stocks where scientific advice indicates that the stock is in poor shape. In recent years, to reduce catches of depleted stocks in mixed fisheries, TACs were set as by-catch only at levels that help the biomass of these vulnerable stocks to recover to sustainable levels. These were complimented by remedial technical measures in the Celtic Sea, west of Scotland and the Irish Sea. The Marine Institute and BIM have made invaluable contributions to the assessment of the ICES advice, which is contained in the sea fisheries sustainability impact assessment before the committee today. I wish to set out briefly the findings contained in that assessment.

With regard to the biological assessment, from a purely biological perspective, the Marine Institute's view, which coincides with the ICES view, is that there has been an improvement in the status of some fish stocks. Others, however, remain a concern. In the impact assessment, the Marine Institute summaries the pressure on the 74 stocks which will be dealt with in the 2023 stock book and compares this assessment with the same evaluation presented in previous years' stock books. The number of sustainably fished stocks for 2022 is 39. This is 53%, the same as last year.

The number and percentage of stocks fished above MSY is currently 17 or 23%. The number of stocks with unknown status has decreased to 18. It is good to see the general improvement in stocks over time. The work being carried out is showing results. It must be remembered that there were only 20 sustainably fished stocks as recently as 2013 and we now have 39. Over ten years, we have gone from 20 sustainably fished stocks to 39. There are multiple reasons stocks have unknown status including short time series of biological data, conflicting input data, low catches or insufficient sampling data or missing catch information. Over time, the percentage of stocks with unknown pressure and state indicators has declined. The specific details for all stocks are available in the sustainability impact assessment before the committee today. Further information on the fish stocks of interest to Ireland are available in the stock book, which is prepared annually by the Marine Institute and which is available on its website.

With regard to economic and social impact, as I indicated earlier, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM, has based the socioeconomic assessment on ICES advice, where available. In cases where the ICES advice was not yet available or where ICES had provided zero catch advice, a roll-over of last year’s TACs was assumed so that the assessment of these stocks could be carried out. ICES advice for nephrops, also known as prawns, is expected to be released on 31 October. In advance of the advice, to assist consideration of the stocks in the Celtic and Irish Seas, different scenarios including reductions of 5% or 10%, rollover and increases of 5% or 10% were examined, as this is an important stock for our fishing industry. It is, therefore, important to highlight that BIM’s estimates may change depending on the final TACs agreed between the EU and UK.

As this advice is for single stock assessment, we can expect significant changes for stocks in mixed fisheries where a particular stock is depleted. This is the case for cod stocks around the coast and the TACs for demersal stocks where cod is a by-catch will be set to support the protection and rebuilding of such depleted stocks. If the TACs were to be agreed on the basis of the assumptions I have mentioned, we would see a net decrease in fishing opportunity of 0.1% by volume in tonnes but a reduction of 6% by value. This amounts to a direct income reduction of €12.4 million. For the demersal or whitefish sector, while this would mean a reduction of 15% in volume of fishing activity and a reduction of 8% by value, with a direct income loss of €9.2 million, this is mainly the result of deductions in Celtic Sea whiting, haddock, cod and pollock in all areas. For the pelagic sector, this would result in an increase of 4% by volume but a 3% reduction by value with a direct income reduction of €3.24 million. This is primarily due to the decrease in mackerel where ICES advised a 5% reduction in catches for next year. However, this would be partially offset by following the increases in the advice for blue whiting, an increase of 12.5%, and boarfish, an increase of 20%.

With regard to processing and ancillary sectors, in addition to the direct losses to the fleet from quota reductions, income would also be lost from the processing sector as a direct result of reduced catches and in a number of ancillary industries such as net-making, chandlery, engineering and refrigeration. This would obviously have a knock-on effect for employment and BIM further estimates, on the basis of the most recent employment surveys of the seafood sector, that, if the TACs were set in accordance with this single stock advice, it could impact 268 full-time equivalent jobs. This could occur either through reduced incomes, partial layoffs or redundancies in the sector.

The Hague Preferences are additional amounts of quota that Ireland claims for important whitefish stocks when the TACs fall below set levels and are negotiated annually at the December Agriculture and Fisheries Council. However, as I have said in previous years, we cannot take the Hague Preferences for granted as they have to be negotiated at the Council each and every year. Many member states object strenuously to their application as the additional quota for Ireland comes off their allocations. These objections are intensifying in the face of quota reductions in other member states arising from both the post-Brexit trade and co-operation agreement and reductions due to scientific advice. Ensuring that the preferences are applied will be a key political objective for me in the negotiations.

To conclude my opening statement, the sea fisheries sustainability impact assessment provides a good picture of the state of stocks and possible implications for 2024. I thank and acknowledge all those who contributed to the production of this assessment. While the assessment is based on the ICES advice rather than the TACs proposed by the Commission, it highlights the potential for significant impacts on the Irish fishing industry. There are some stocks where ICES has issued advice for zero catches. However, with the implementation of the landing obligation and the requirement to land all catches, including by-catches, from such stocks this would lead to choke situations in mixed fisheries. The EU and UK previously established specific TACs for by-catches of these stocks. They highlight the difficultly of fishing all stocks in a mixed fishery at MSY at the same time. We need to strike a balance between the potential for severe socioeconomic impacts and the need to achieve good environmental status for stocks. I will support a similar approach to that taken in previous years for these vulnerable stocks.

I again thank the Cathaoirleach and all members. I thank them for their patience in facilitating this opening statement. As they can see, given the range of content and issues involved, it is important that a full explanation be given at the outset so I appreciate the time given to it. I look forward to engagement and to answering questions.