Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Mythen. When I said I was considering, I was specifically referring to Deputy Ring's request for a review of the mackerel allocation. What I said is that I had received requests and I was considering them.

On the need for some support for the inshore sector, what I said is that I am finalising the details of a scheme in relation to that. I plan to make an announcement on it in the next two to three weeks because I recognise the pressure the sector is under. Deputy Mythen has outlined that clearly. He also clearly outlined that the situation is very much market related. He outlined a halving in prices in one instance. No matter the sector, we cannot mitigate that as a Government, but it is important to try and support business where we can. I am looking to finalise what can be done in regard to that. There is no getting away from the fact that recent months have been very difficult number and income in the sector has been hammered.

On the wider issue of pollock, I have worked in every way possible to try and support the sector in terms of reopening fisheries as well. Pollock was closed this year, for the first time in a long time, on the basis of scientific advice.

We have, over the past two to three years, seen a couple of fisheries reopened for the first time. Spurdog was reopened, for which the sector had significant hopes. While it has proven challenging to identify market opportunities for it, we have succeeded in getting it reopened. North-west herring also has been reopened to a commercial fishery for the first time and that has followed on from significant steps taken by all in the industry to try to see the stocks rebuilt. That is something we have to try to build on too.

The Deputy mentioned the Brexit adjustment reserve and inshore fisherman being excluded from that. The inshore representatives were fully part of the process of looking at what was possible under the Brexit adjustment reserve and were able to propose schemes. I followed through on and implemented every suggestion that came to me. I did not get anything from any party or from anybody here either, such as a proposal as to what I could do with the Brexit adjustment reserve. Nothing came forward from anyone. I put everybody into one room with the task of looking at this funding and coming up with any ideas they could. I told them if they came up with any schemes that fit its terms and criteria, they were to come to me and I would seek to implement it. I did that with all 16 and everybody in the industry was part of that.

The challenge for the inshore sector was that for many of the smaller boats that did not have quotas and that fished non-quota species, it was much more challenging to identify ways to spend the Brexit adjustment reserve on them. For crab and lobster in particular, which is the bread and butter of the smaller boats, there is no quota for those species. As long as you have a licence, you can catch as much as you can catch. Therefore, Brexit did not have an impact on lobster or crab fishing because it did not impact their quota directly. We did, however, run those two business adjustment schemes to try to get funding to them but because they were not directly quota-related species, it was more challenging to find ways of getting funding from the Brexit adjustment reserve to them.

Those inshore boats that did fish the likes of pollock or other quota species were able to avail of the tie-up schemes under the Brexit adjustment reserve. If you did not have a quota, however, and you fished non-quota species such as crab or lobster, then there was not any tie-up because there was no change to your quota. Whenever you do not have quotas, that brings other challenges in terms of how you manage stocks sustainably to make sure you are fishing them in a sensible way to ensure they do not get depleted. That is one of the challenges with the inshore industry at the moment because there are fewer other species. North-west herring, for example, was closed for a long time and spurdog, which had been a traditional species, was closed. Thankfully both of those have reopened, but pollock closed this year. Salmon was a massive species for the inshore sector and that has been gone for a long time and was closed. Once they were closed, the gravitation of all of those boats, which all traditionally fished salmon, naturally has shifted. For example, they would have given the likes of lobster and crab a rest when they were doing that but those boats are now putting more pressure on crab and lobster stocks because they are the only stocks available to fish. That is something we have to keep a close eye on too because we do not want to see those stocks depleted in a way that means they do not remain sustainable. That is the background to the BAR funding piece.