Mr. Aodh O'Donnell:

Basically, we have a big problem. We have the Norwegians, the Faroese, the Russians, the Icelanders and Greenlanders - non-EU states - overfishing our shared stocks by up to 40%. In the past five years, it is estimated that they have taken, cumulatively, 1 million tonnes of stock over and above the science. We cannot understand this. We know the cause of the problem. We have pointed this out a number of times over the past number of years. We have expected this cut. We have a 70% cut in mackerel. We have got 40% in blue whiting and 22% in boarfish. Cumulatively, this is a 50%-odd cut in one year. It comes up on top of the Brexit cut of 26%. It is not a crisis; it is a collapse. On top of this, each year, Europe, which negotiates on behalf of Ireland as a member state, enters into a soft deal with Norway to allow it to access EU waters to fish blue whiting and other species.

This is simply not on. We are rewarding a rogue state to fish in European waters and to catch three or four times our quota in our waters or waters to the west of Ireland. We know the cause but we have a problem with inaction at European level. Something needs to be done to address this in terms of trade measures and blocking access.