Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Over the past five years, more than 1 million tonnes of mackerel have been caught above the level set in scientific advice and in defiance of scientific advice. It is astonishing that this has been allowed to happen. I have met with fishing interests over recent years and they have provided, to the best of their ability with the limited resources they have, research that demonstrates that corporations based in the EU have built up a significant amount of the fleet involved in this utterly reckless practice. If these corporations were operating in European waters, they would have to stick to the quotas defined by the Common Fisheries Policy, but what they have done is build up fleets in places like Iceland, the Faroes and, to a lesser extent, Norway and recklessly overfished. I have tried to get this information but the Commission says that it is a matter for each country to decide on quota. It has done nothing about this. It has done nothing to stop this. The Common Fisheries Policy lies in ruins in terms of credibility and moral force. Over the past five years, 1 million tonnes of mackerel have been caught in defiance of scientific advice. A precious fishery resource has been wrecked by EU-based corporations that built up the industry and did that.

Will the Minister of State look for the Commission to urgently investigate who these corporations are, what their interests are in these third states and whether they also benefit from reciprocal fishing arrangements in terms of Arctic cod? Are they benefiting on the double as EU-based corporations, while Ireland suffers on the double because we have access to our water for blue whiting and we are devastated by the impact on mackerel? We are being destroyed. If we speak about what happened with Brexit, the betrayal of Ireland in terms of fisheries was outrageous. There was financial compensation for that but what has happened here is even worse.

Will the Minister look for an investigation into EU-based corporations that have been hugely enriched on the back of these reckless and destructive practices? Will that be looked at?