Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent)
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I welcome our guests who have come here today to speak about the continued crisis in fishing. It is something I have spoken on at great length in the Dáil. Serious errors were made in the run-up to the Brexit negotiations, which have cost us dearly. The Government failed to get a deal for the sector during Brexit negotiations and the only option it is now putting forward is a decommissioning plan. At the heart of this plan is an agenda to allow foreign vessels to take more fish from Irish waters while Irish vessels are forced to be decommissioned or remained tied up in ports. I have a few questions to ask on decommissioning at the end but I have a statement to read out first.

It appears €63.5 million will be paid to those families who are being forcefully removed from the fishing industry. This sum is to be deducted from €400 million in funding given to the Government from the €1.1 billion fund paid to Ireland by the EU. I might ask a further question on that later. We appear to be on the lower end of the scale as regards the funding we will get from the €1.1 billion fund. We have ended up with €63.5 million but our industry will probably be the most affected.

In summary, under the Brexit deal, Ireland contributed about 15% of the total value of our total 2020 fisheries quota to the agreement. Proportionately, that is substantially more than that of any other member state impacted. This was a disastrous deal for Irish fisheries. The Minister and the Government completely failed to protect the interests of the sector during the negotiations. Regardless of how much I pressed in the Dáil for other options to be put forward, they were not put forward by the Minister or the Government. It was extremely important that every option was considered. For example, even the task force report noted the case being made by some member states that if the transfers to the UK were evenly divided across each member state with fishing rights, it would involve a 5.8% transfer per member state. The Minister utterly failed to negotiate such a deal. Arguably, this was the worse ever deal negotiated by any Minister on behalf of the State.

The Irish seafood economy is estimated to be worth €1.22 billion. Approximately 16,400 people are employed by the industry, which includes ancillary services such as production, the servicing of fishing boats and net manufacture. Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Ireland's seafood development agency, states €400 million is generated through domestic consumption and €263 million through exports and imports. Some 2,030 fishing vessels were registered in Ireland as of 2020.

I could go on. The representatives of the industry know all about this. They held peaceful demonstrations in Cork and Dublin recently and got great support from the people. When I raised this issue in the Dáil the response I received, that there will be quota discussions in 2023 or later, effectively kicked the can down the road. It was as if to say those in the industry would be given some bit of compensation now to get rid of them and that would be the handiest way out of it.

While some of those in the industry agreed with the task force report, one fishing organisation did not and I completely support it. Are Mr. Murphy from the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation and the other representatives happy with the findings of the task force report? Do they consider €63.5 million to be a fair payout given that decommissioning seems to be the only answer the Government has? In the 12 months since the disastrous deal was signed, have there been any discussions with the industry on the next quota negotiations? I assume negotiations will start to see we can put up a fight to win something back. I would appreciate if the witnesses could answer those questions.