Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 30 September 2025
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs
Sprat Fishing: Discussion
2:00 am
Mr. Patrick Murphy:
I will address this to Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, who I think is one of the best advocates for our industry I have met in my time as CEO of the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation. However, I do not agree that I came here to argue with my fellow fishermen. Absolutely not.
I wanted to put out the facts about the fisheries that are there. We have nine closed fisheries. We have MPAs and wind farms coming towards us. This is not just about sprat. We have boats that have traditionally fished and earned their living - it is part of their income - inside these areas where they are now no longer going to be able to do it. When I hear this is not discriminatory, I scratch my head and wonder how that evaluation can be come up with. I am going to give an example. We have faced, and will face, the UK, which did the TCA deal for 12 years, to which we gave 49 million of fish, 25% of our fish, in order to have access to UK waters. Now they are saying that 43 areas are going to be designated as marine protected areas. In one of those areas, our boats spend 80% of their year's catches, and they are going to be excluded from those areas. Can members imagine if the UK turned around and brought in a measure to say that they needed to protect their English boats and, ergo, they were going to give those opportunities just to English boats? Would we call that discrimination? For me, that is a simple "yes".
I know we have been discussing 101 times about the science and how we need the science to decide on how we can set a quota for this important stock. For my members and the larger members, if they do not have a quota in this, then they will be even further discriminated against with regard to this opportunity. We have spoken today about the loss of opportunities.
To make sure people understand where I am coming from, on the wall of my organisation there were 87 boats and members in 1995. After three decommissioning schemes, we are left with 37. That is where we are. We have vessels landing into our ports that are actually increasing their activity since Brexit. We have boats coming into Castletownbere landing fish into the backs of lorries that are damaging the roads due to the weight of the fish and our fishermen still do not fight with those fishermen because it is a competitive industry outside. However, we do need a fair share of the fish in our own waters.
Coming back to what Deputy Michael Cahill said about going to Europe, we have a Common Fisheries Policy that has three pillars under relative stability. They are the protection of coastal communities, the protection of our oceans and the protection of our stocks. Aside from the impending doom coming in pelagics, we have nine species, both in the Irish Sea and the Celtic Sea, with zero catch advice. We have no quotas. We are not allowed to have a quota unless we have a by-catch for whiting, cod, haddock and pollock in the Celtic Sea. We are at death's door. They are the facts of our industry. We are in such danger of losing our industry.
This is the last thing I want members to remember. I ask them to please remember this. In 2004, on the Irish fishing register, we had 400 vessels over 15 m. There were 400 boats for the entire Irish people. Now, in 2025, we have 140. That is it. They are the boats we are talking about that are trying to earn a living in our waters.