Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The clock is running down. One other point of interest is that we always hear of an issue with the six nautical mile exclusion zone. I find that hard to comprehend. I grew up on the shores of Bantry Bay. In the days of the old British Empire strength, before the State was ever formed, there were rules and regulations governing the big trawlers, which were not half the size they are now. They were timber trawlers. One rule was that there was no trawling between sunset and sunrise. The notion at the time was they would come in and encroach on the lives of the smaller fellas onshore. I was looking out over Schull Harbour a week before Christmas. There were two vessels, which in my view were a lot bigger than 18 m, and they were pair-trawling in the harbour for pilchards or whatever. I could not believe it was going on because the money made on that is small, whatever use is made of pilchards. Yet, they are encroaching on and damaging the pots, lines and gear, which the fishermen, including the likes of the witnesses, have to put up with. Will any of them tell me, if they were to start off in the morning and put out a couple of lines of 300 pots, which is not a lot, with the cost of rope and gear or whatever, what would it cost them?