Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for being with us today. Fishing is a very difficult subject. Witnesses from the National Inshore Fishermen's Association were before us earlier and they painted a very bleak, shocking picture. I would appreciate it if the departmental officials replayed the proceedings and listened to the facts.

One would like to say the facts should not be on the ground. The fishermen do not want to be on the ground. They cannot go out to sea because of so many issues, including stocks, and there being no competition. They do not have a brown cent to put food on their tables. There is no system in place to compensate these inshore fishermen. They have a strong voice. In terms of the Irish fleet, an estimated 75% of all fish caught in Irish seas are caught by non-Irish fishing boats. In other words, the Irish fishing fleet is allowed just 25% of the 1.2 million tonnes of fish that are caught in Irish waters each year.

The under development of the Irish fishing industry has hit isolated rural communities very hard, particularly along the coasts where other sources of employment are limited. Without work, people are left with little option but to move to cities or emigrate to other countries. Comparable non-EU countries, like Norway and Iceland, have taken much better advantage of their fish resources and developed not only vibrant fishing fleets but also major spin-off industries in areas such as food processing and boat building.

A properly developed and managed fishing industry could contribute billions of euro annually to this economy and provide much-needed employment to isolated rural communities. A developed fishing sector would help provide much needed balance in an economy that is currently over-reliant on US multinationals. In order to achieve this we need a Minister who will prioritise the needs of the fishermen.

In fairness, Ms McSherry mentioned COM (2023) 587. With no disrespect to her, what was said sounded like a foreign language. Why has the Minister not succeeded in getting quotas? He will say that he did get some little piece extra in, I think, the mackerel quota before Christmas but nothing significant has been seen to come our way. Brexit took as much as it could away from us a couple of years ago and our fishing stock was handed out.