Mr. John Ó Conghaile:

Tá mé ag labhairt thar ceann Íascairí Intíre Cois Cladach na hÉireann. Chuaigh mé ag iascaireacht nuair a bhí mé deich mbliana d'aois. Tá 50 bliain caite agam ar an bhfarraige. Chuaigh an iascaireacht síos ó ghlúin go glúin chugam. Tá sé tagtha anois ag an am nuair nach mbeidh mé in ann aon iascaireacht eile a dhéanamh. Tháinig foirmeacha amach le líonadh. Bhí orm dul trí scór míle ó mó gheata le n-iad a fháil síneáilte. Ní raibh na páipéirí a thaispeáin gur íoc mé as mo chuid potaí agam le n-iad a chur isteach. Iarraim oraibh mar choiste go gcuirfí cúpla mí eile leis na foirmeacha seo a chur isteach.

My name is Seán Connolly and I am from the inshore fishermen organisation. I was born on an island like the lads here and I am fishing for over 50 years. In my area there was no secondary school or anything so the only choice was to go fishing or take the white boat to London or wherever.

The industry has become very hard for us now. We received forms the other day to fill in but I must travel 60 miles to a solicitor in order to get the form signed, which will cost a lot of money. I buy my pots up Donegal way but I have no dockets for them. When I bought my pots I left the dockets in my van which was ruined when the sea came in on top of it. My dockets and all are gone. I also lost all of my pots off the pier.

I do not fish in winter because it does a lot of damage. When I started fishing I had 50 pots and could earn a week's wages which I saved in order to keep me going in winter. Now boats around me fish 1,000 or 1,500 pots in order to catch the same amount of fish but the fish are not there. Five or six years ago I was fishing about 300 pots and got about ten boxes of lobsters. Last year I reduced my number of pots down to 200. I caught a box of lobsters every week which amounted to about €200, which did not leave me with much after baits, petrol and everything was paid for. There is nothing else to do in my area so I have to keep on fishing.

I fish shrimps and velvets and I think managing must come into inshore fishing. Every other type of fishing has gone such as dogfish, salmon, and all of the other kinds of fishing that we did, including bask fishing down south. Everybody is now fishing lobsters so there is pressure on the lobster population at the moment.

I do not think that the Government applied for moneys from the EU Solidarity Fund. About an hour ago I spoke to an MEP who told me that nobody applied for money from it to compensate fishermen. He said that the whitefish small trawlers in Rossaveal had not been fishing for months before Christmas. Therefore, they have not earned a penny and are in trouble. The small fishermen are in trouble. There are no jobs in my area and it has no factories. There is nothing only the shore around to make a living from. Now we are being told that we cannot cut seaweed, pick winkles and so on. We kept the Irish language going in our area and we have kept everything going. If nothing is done everyone will soon be out of fishing. Something must be done for small fishermen. Perhaps the date for the submission of application forms could be extended and we could get more money for the fishermen.