Mr. Cormac Burke:

Good morning. I thank members of the committee for the invitation to be here today. I will give an abbreviated version of the opening statement that I submitted. I have picked out a few of the main points. While the EU Commission claims this agreement offers stability, it does nothing for Ireland, which has lost the chance of negotiating back any of the quota submitted to the UK during Brexit. The deal shows the Commission’s failure to protect Ireland’s fishing sector. It appears there is no intention to save Ireland from the Common Fisheries Policy, which benefits EU nations to harvest Irish waters while forcing Irish fishermen to survive on 14% of total EU quota in Irish waters. At this stage, Irish fishermen feel their industry has reached the point of no return unless there is a radical overhaul of the system.

There are a number of example in this regard. First, every time the inshore sector attempts to diversify into a fishery to take pressure off the crab resource, that fishery is closed due to regulation or coincidental scientific advice that suits the EU Commission narrative at that time. Second, a demersal sector example exists in south-east Ireland where Irish vessels are restricted by EU quotas to just a few kilos of Dover sole per month while Belgian vessels, fishing the same Irish waters, are allowed several tonnes. Incredibly, this has resulted in Belgian fishing companies building new vessels purely for this lucrative situation, while Irish vessels go bankrupt. Third, the pelagic fleet has seen quotas alarmingly reduced. Since the Commission no longer deems there to be Irish waters but rather classifies them as an EU shared resource, it carries out deals with Norway, without much consultation with Ireland, to permit the catching of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of Irish blue whiting, while Ireland’s allowance is just 60,000 tonnes.

Ireland was impacted disproportionately by the Brexit deal, losing €43 million worth of quota annually. People do not realise that, reportedly according to Eurostat, €215 billion has been taken from Irish waters since we joined the EU in 1973.