Manus Boyle (Fine Gael)
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I first want to pass on my condolences to the McCloskey family. I knew Kevin very well. He was a hard-working fisherman for 42 years and he was a good member to me. I offer his family my sincere condolences.

We are all here today but we will not be here next year if these proposals from ICES come through. We have lost 85% of our mackerel since 2022. I know we are here to discuss sprat and I will come to it in a minute. Our leaders - our Ministers and MEPs - need to stand up. It is time for the boys to do something. The industry cannot take these cuts. Other countries are overfishing here. Let us call them out as my colleagues have: Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. We are being really hammered. Anyone who tells me any different is wrong. There has been an 85% cut in mackerel since 2022. It is just criminal what has been going on. Somebody needs to stand up and be counted. People in coastal communities cannot live on scraps. That is what we have been doing for the past ten or 15 years. Somebody needs to draw a line in the sand and get a fair playing field for our coastal communities. Enough is enough. I ask committee members to all take a stand. Let us all get out and put the pressure on. These cuts cannot happen. I am sorry about that but with everything that is going on it is very hard to sit and listen to what ICES is saying.

Nobody exactly knows what the biomass of sprat out there is. Is that what is basically going on here? Nobody can turn around and say there is 20,000, 30,000 or 5,000 tonnes. Is there any way we can get figures on that?