Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Industry forums, quota-management advisory committees, are discussing how we might deal with this discards issue. The industry here has been leading in introducing new technologies, and nets with escape hatches and larger mesh sizes so that fishermen are not catching juvenile fish other wild fish, etc., that they would be obliged to discard otherwise. From 1 January 2019 they have to land everything. The danger is that fishermen who have been out fishing one species might come in with a percentage of another species for which they have a very low quota and, hey presto, that becomes a choke preventing them going out catching fish for which they still have available quota.

We do not see the Commission’s response in terms of zero quotas for member states, but as a Union TAC as a way to deal with that.