Mr. Séamus Bonner:

As Mr. Conneely mentioned, no-take zones could potentially be a big problem, depending on how they are implemented, because small boats cannot move outside their own areas. If there is a no-take zone in their area, it means they cannot fish and we do not want that. A lot of people are leaving fishing at the moment, whether they are retiring or otherwise, and there are not enough people coming to take their place. That is an ongoing issue and one we have identified to the Minister and others. It needs to be addressed urgently.

Otherwise, in five or ten years' time we are not going to have any small fishing on the west coast.

We are looking for reform of social welfare. It is one of the recommendations in the 2014 report. That cross-party report was agreed a long time ago and has not been implemented. As a result, when somebody has to tie up their boat because they are sick, the weather is bad or something has happened to their boat, they cannot access social welfare supports. There is no safety net there for fishermen because they are classed as self-employed. Share fishermen are self-employed now. Some of the bigger boats have employees but the majority of the Irish fishing fleet are share fishermen who do not have these supports. This means that if anything goes wrong, the fisher is in dire straits and cannot access any supports whatsoever. The other issue identified is that a lot of unpaid work is being done within fishing families, particularly by women supporting their families. Their work is not recognised and, again, if something goes wrong, they are not able to access the support they need.