Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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I thank the Minister, and I respect that, but is he saying he was made aware of this before Christmas? The fishing industry was not made aware this until 4 p.m. on 16 April 2021. Why was there not some work done between Christmas and April, before it was announced and before industry was told of the changes? What happened in those four months? We are in a situation where it was two months before we were told; it could have been three or four months. We were told two months before a decision is going to be made what is going to happen. These two months are going to be detrimental to inshore fishing and hugely difficult to all fishermen, for that matter. It looks to me as though there was a decision made in Europe at Christmas. Whether it was opposed or argued, I cannot answer that. However, January, February, March and April went by and the industry was not notified that there could be changes or that there was a concern. It made it very clear to this committee during the week that it had heard nothing about this.