Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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It absolutely cannot be business as usual. As the Minister of State will know, Sinn Féin has welcomed the appointment of a dedicated Minister of State with responsibility for fisheries who is entirely focused on this sector. We have disastrous recommendations on mackerel, blue whiting and boarfish. Our mackerel industry is crucial. We have just heard evidence from the processor sector that mackerel accounts for 80% of the value of many of our factories. We also learned that we could end up with processing factories in only one area, Killybegs in County Donegal. I do not need to rhyme off the scale of this. The current situation did not just happen overnight. It happened over a number of years. I will be frank with the Minister of State. This country has repeatedly failed to defend our interests, year in and year out. We have an appalling strategy in terms of representation in the European Commission and European Parliament.

We have allowed this to happen. We have not spoken up when we have seen reckless overfishing. We name countries, such as Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, and we talk about the role of Russia and the United Kingdom, but we also need to talk about the role of European Union-based corporations. Major corporations have built up pelagic industries in areas like Iceland and the Faroes. The Faroes are part of Denmark, a European Union member state.

We need to be frank. We have a European Union that has not stood up to the corporations that have recklessly overfished and destroyed a precious shared resource. They have abandoned the Irish fishing fleet again, as they did in the Brexit negotiations, which have been extended for another 12 years. Therefore, the injustice of the trade and co-operation agreement on the Irish fishing fleet has been extended for another 12 years. If that was not bad enough, we are now told that this is four times worse in its impact than Brexit was.

I want to get a sense of the game plan. We have a dedicated Minister of State. We need a fresh approach, not business as usual. It is a question of what that means in terms of dealing with the states and corporations in the European Union that have been involved in this reckless practice. What does that mean in terms of the supports that will be required? Even if the reckless overfishing stops tomorrow, what financial supports will the European Commission be asked to put on the table to save our industry and keep it alive? This has happened because of its utter, wilful failure to follow the science and confront the wrongdoers. I want to get a sense of the Minister of State's game plan and strategy, and the resources he is going to deploy.