Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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In regard to the issue of the percentage catch in our waters, can the Minister tell me whether he would be willing to meet the producer organisations of all sizes, as well as the co-operatives - basically the people who took part in the task force along with the inshore sector - and agree what is the catch? Obviously it has to be based on real data that are agreed as we know the phrase, "lies, damn lies and statistics". This would get everybody on the same page. Would the Minister agree that is critical? If everybody agrees what the problem is, then that would be a starting point. As it is critical that this should happen, is the Minister willing to do that and convene a forum with them all, as well as the Marine Institute, to agree what the scale of the problem is and to get on the same page in regard to that matter? That is the first point.

Second, we know how it works. The Minister obviously will be out there, in that he goes out to these negotiations and meets fisheries ministers. They have briefings from their departments on either side and everybody goes away and nothing gets advanced. Would he be agreeable to an information campaign of some kind about the impact on the Irish coastal communities? The fact is that after this scheme, we are now down to around a third. This is the third EU-funded decommissioning scheme in Ireland. We are down to a third of what we were 15 years ago. Would the Minister be agreeable to do more than just go to the Agriculture and Fisheries Council but to have some strategy around how we would move to build support in Europe for a fair deal for Ireland and to tell the story? Is there some kind of campaign or strategy he could undertake there? He and I can go back and forth and do all the political stuff but he is the Minister, he has the resources and the power to do all this. He has toured around the piers and harbours, as have I, and he must have heard the same feedback. I was at his town hall online meeting with the Donegal fishermen. He will remember that meeting well. It was tough going. People were angry. They are unsure of what the future is going to be. He has heard the same thing and he knows about it.

What will we do about it? What will be the plan for our country to undo this and challenge an injustice? If we have never learned, surely the experience of burden sharing is the final straw for us. Surely that must be the last blow we can take, where we are just not seeing anyone stand up for our fishing interests. There was not equal burden sharing of the Brexit deal. We have not been taken seriously. The Minister talks about two weeks, but this is now a year on and still we do not have fair burden sharing. The way that we are going at the moment, I have seen no evidence that it will happen. At some point there has to be a strategy to turn this around, other than what we have been doing and failed on so far. That is the challenge.

How will the Minister build consensus across the people who participated in this task force? How do we build consensus and agreement about what the problem is? If we do not agree with what the problem is, how can we solve it? Once the Minister has a consensus, what will we do about it? What kind of a campaign will be launched? Will we get those voices of fishers onto the media in Europe? Is there some strategy or something we can do? What we have been doing as a country has not worked for so long. I hope the Minister can sense that I am trying to be constructive in putting that to him. He knows the sense of despair and anger in coastal communities, but we need to do something about it. We need to turn it around. I hope he takes those comments in the spirit that they are intended.