Ms Anna O'Sullivan:

At the moment, there are no sharing agreements in place for the coastal state parties' three main stocks of mackerel, blue whiting and Atlanto-Scandian herring. Negotiations have been ongoing for a year or more so that the coastal state parties, which are, as Ms McSherry mentioned, the EU, the UK, Norway and so on, can come to an agreement on sharing arrangements. In the case of mackerel, our most important pelagic stock in Ireland, there had been a sharing agreement in place between the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands since 2014. After Brexit, in 2021, Norway broke from that agreement and set its own unilateral TAC. The Faroese followed suit and set themselves a national quota that was higher than what the quota had been in the past. The Minister has stated very strongly that this is unacceptable and that measures need to be taken to address it. He has frequently addressed this issue at EU level.