Mr. John Lynch:

We sent in a fairly detailed statement and we outlined all the stocks that are of concern to us for this year. We also detailed some of the pelagic stocks, on which we fully support the Irish position. We recognise what we lost in Brexit but we also lost in demersal stocks and that is mentioned in the statement. One in particular is our second most valuable stock, namely, nephrops. In some ways it is probably our most important stock in terms of the number of vessels and crew that depend on it. As outlined in the statement, we lost 14% of our nephrops quota in the Brexit TCA agreement. We have yet to get any quota balancing there. The nephrops fleet is at a minus. This has driven many of the applications for the decommissioning scheme, because of the reduction in earnings for the vessels which is, in demersal terms over €10 million per year each year since the TCA or rather, it is building to €10 million in 2026. Those losses are unsustainable and that is why vessel owners were forced to apply for the decommissioning scheme. If we had burden-sharing within the EU on the TCA agreement, this might not have been the case for many owners.

Another serious effect of the TCA agreement for our members was on scallop vessels. They are not affected by quota but they are affected by the TCA agreement. They have yet to receive any assistance from the BAR funding for the losses they have suffered due to the TCA. They are struggling like everyone else in terms of fuel and the ongoing costs because of how they had to change their business due to the TCA. This meant that they could not trade through the UK anymore because of the requirement for health certificates.

Leading into 2023, we will have a review of the Common Fisheries Policy and we have outlined in our statement our opinions on the stocks of concern. Among our main stocks of concern are monkfish and black sole in area VII, particularly in 7f and 7g sole, where we only have 3% of the TAC in the European Union. Three percent is a very small amount for a coastal state in that area. We have vessels that very much rely on this. We cannot understand why we have so little and we can not understand why we do not invoke. We have a Hague preference on this stock and we do not invoke it. In our opinion, the Hague preference should be invoked this year along with the others that are invoked every year.

We have not had a TAC on spurdog since 2009. There will be a provisional TAC for spurdog in the first three months if there is no agreement with the UK by Friday.

We emphasise the need to move our fisheries in all stocks, to a maximum sustainable yield by 2030. In doing that, we need to recognise that some stocks are at such a low level that they are given a zero TAC advice by ICES each year.

Where efforts are being made to rebuild these stocks, we still require a by-catch quota for these stocks to keep other fisheries open. In other words, a lot of our target species in the demersal sector like nephrops, haddock and whiting cannot be caught without also catching some cod. We require a by-catch quota there and for whiting in some areas where there is a zero TAC advice. One cannot target the other fisheries without accidentally catching some of these species. We urge that those by-catch quotas would continue for that reason.