Ms Sin?ad McSherry:

As the Deputy mentioned, bluefin tuna is a highly migratory stock. It spawns in the Mediterranean and then migrates all over the north-east Atlantic to feed. Ireland does not have a national quota for bluefin tuna. The only way to obtain a share of the EU quota would involve changing the relative stability key within the European Union.

That would require a majority of member states to agree under the qualified majority voting system to reallocate some for Ireland. Ireland has a small by-catch of bluefin tuna and that is primarily for use in our albacore tuna fishery and the Celtic Sea herring fishery where there can be by-catch and one needs to account for that under the landing obligation.

The Minister has on several occasions over the past number of Councils made a case to reopen that allocation key in order to secure a quote for Ireland. As the committee can imagine, naturally, that is resisted by those members which hold a quota at the moment but it is something the Minister has addressed regularly and will continue to push for at EU level.