Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the assistant secretary, Cecil Beamish, and the principal officer, Josephine Kelly. It is important we get these regular briefs in respect of what is taking place. At times it is difficult to decipher exactly what the practical outcome will be for ordinary people who must try to sustain a living from fishing.

There should be a ban in Europe on any meeting going beyond 11:30 p.m. It is totally outrageous. This has been going on for years and years. A great gaisce is made about going on until 6:30 a.m. However, people's livelihoods are depending on decisions made by fatigued negotiators and the process inevitably leads to bad decision making. It seems that these talks, no matter what way they are organised, have gone on for years with this great macho approach to negotiation. These are people's lives. Everyone negotiating should be fully awake and alert when the most crucial decisions are being made. It is obnoxious that these decisions are made at 6:30 a.m.

Let us consider what the delegation has said on the issue of the discards. It goes without saying that the idea of discarding good fish is obnoxious. However, the devil is always in the detail and I am interested to hear the views of the fishermen's and fisherwomen's organisations in respect of how discards will work in practice. We have seen all sorts of regulations coming from the environment agenda to farming which are laudable in themselves but which have had various unintended consequences when they have been applied. I seek reassurance on the issue of discards, which I support. No one can argue against it but we need to know the answer in this regard.

I am concerned about the European Parliament's input with regard to the maximum sustainable yield. The European Parliament is controlled and dominated by people who are a long way from the sea and from fishermen. Few of the people elected to the European Parliament will depend on fishermen as an electorate. I am concerned at the levels the European Parliament might set on a precautionary basis.

I am very worried about the outcome and I ask the two officials present if it is possible to get more detail. This seems to be one of the nub issues so is it possible to see a chart of the proposals from the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Parliament on sustainable fishing? Could we have the effect of each proposal on total allowable catches, so that we can have some sense of the practical effect on fishermen's lives? The delegation put much time and effort into this document but it is very hard to get any sense of how this is likely to play out from it, depending on which of the three parties win the tug of war.

It is indicated that this last part poses problems because although we can control fish mortality, we cannot predict how quickly a stock will respond and at what rate. Invariably, factors outside our control have an effect on this response. I can envision large lobby groups arguing that if there is any risk, we should take a conservative or precautionary approach and not allow catches. I am very concerned about that.

It is indicated that in January 2016 a ban will be rolled out in the North Sea south-western waters and, importantly for the Irish fleet, for fisheries of cod, haddock, whiting, Norway lobsters, common sole, plaice and hake in north-western waters. What kind of tonnages are we talking about and what will be the effect on the Irish fishing fleet? Baltic country parliaments can discuss the Baltic ban and the Mediterranean ban is not of concern to us; our job as an Oireachtas is to consider the greater good but particularly to defend the Irish interest. If possible, I would like a much more detailed outline of what the likely effect of this will be on the total allowable catches and the fish that Irish fishermen can take.

I am disappointed that there does not appear to be anything to extend the inshore range and ensure that coastal communities get more of the fish within their range. There does not seem to be any good news there for the small fisherman in a small boat trying to eke out a living around the coast of Ireland from Clogherhead to Lough Foyle. I wish the Minister would put the same effort into defending inshore fishermen as he has put into defending big farmers, and there may have been a better result if that was the case.

Those present know my attitude to the Common Fisheries Policy. Fianna Fáil, as part of the Government, sold out in 1973. It is a bad policy for Ireland and no other sector requires the country to give up so much national wealth to the common pool for so little in return. One could argue that if we had our own fisheries, the austerity suffered by the country would be significantly decreased because we would have sustainable income. I am very disappointed that there appears to be no evidence of the Minister using his position in the Presidency to lay clearly on the line that he is not satisfied with the arrangement arrived at and the need for fundamental reform to ensure that those near the coast get the lion's share of the catch. I heard of no public meetings organised by the Minister to whip up public support for a policy to defend our vital national interest and ensure we get a fair proportion of the fish for the waters around our coast.

We should remember the extent of the coastal waters around Ireland at the time we entered the European Union. I was not in government or even in politics at the time but I opposed the policy and campaigned against it as we were giving away forever our birthright in exchange for short-term grants. That is the way the Common Fisheries Policy was framed. If we had the money we could have got over those years, we would have had a significant amount of sustainable wealth in the country. There is no evidence in public view or in negotiations that anything was done to try to make the people aware that this fundamental reform was taking place and there was an opportunity - which comes once every ten years - to open the issue again. I did not hear that the Minister went to Castletownbere, Rossaveal, Killybegs, Dunmore East, Dingle or anywhere else to whip up support for public demand for a fundamental review of the policy.

The Minister does not even appear to have been able to bring the Council with him on the Hague preferences and we must still negotiate them every year. I notice that the European Parliament is more with us than the Council. The Minister was capable of defending his corner yesterday and I thought he would have at least been able to ensure that we could protect the Hague preferences. These are total allowable catches given to us every year as part of a negotiation, and we must, effectively, hand in some of our chips in order to get them. They should be permanent and non-negotiable. It is interesting that the Parliament has at least the good sense to see that we should be given the Hague preferences on a permanent basis.

I have noted the comments today and my basic reaction is that it is a very bad deal and we have once again failed to see the potential of the seas around our island. There is a map in my office prepared by Foras na Mara, or the Marine Institute, showing how much of the Irish territory is in water and how little is land. Once again, we have ignored that fact and in a hurry to get a Common Fisheries Policy, we have sold out a fundamental Irish right. I cannot endorse this as a good position for the Council and it is an abysmal failure. Not only are we not seeing a fundamental reform of how the allocations are made but we are not even getting small pieces for the inshore fishermen or the Hague preferences. In other words, it is an agreement on nothing except more cutbacks. The only redeeming feature is the discards issue, which is welcome in the context of world hunger and poverty, as nobody should be throwing good food into the sea.