Mr. Patrick Murphy:

I thank the Chair. I commend the questioning from the Senator and the Deputy. It is opening up this debate. It should have been done years ago. We have been raising this via our presence on the Pelagic Advisory Council and asking for a predictive analysis from ICES of this continuous overfishing.

To explain to the viewers watching, in the coastal states negotiations that Mr. Rihan referred to, the representatives of all the coastal states meet. When it finishes, they agree the science. They agree with the numbers that are set by ICES. The problem is that without a comprehensive sharing arrangement of who catches what of that share, these countries then unilaterally increase their shares above that which exceeds the scientific advice. This does not just affect the pelagic fleet. We have a system in Ireland where we use a portion of the TAC to do swaps with our European counterparts in getting necessary stocks for our whitefish and demersal sector, and without mackerel, this will prove impossible. Therefore, this has a contagion effect right across.

We also have to understand that if vessels that are primarily pelagic vessels lose their pelagic entitlements, they will have to go back into demersal fishing, which, as we know, is a shared pot. To survive on, Ireland gets 15% of the fish that swim in its waters. This is not only specific to pelagics. This really is a problem for the future of our fleet. I have said this many times in this meeting, and I welcome the opportunity to say it because it needs to be understood - Ireland has successively cut its fleet each time of asking, losing the opportunity for future generations to fish our own waters. We are down to 140 boats. We have lost more than 50% in the last 20 years, and this will continue because if there is no change in the Common Fisheries Policy to protect the indigenous people of Ireland, this is what will be asked of us again. We do not have the fish, even though the fish are in our waters, unlike Norway, England and Iceland, which just keep taking more. Their fleets are building while ours are actually going out of business. I agree with my colleague, Mr. O'Donnell, in that we definitely need to put pressure from the highest representatives in this country, right up to our Taoiseach, to go to Europe and say this cannot continue and that it is actually wiping out our fishing industry for future generations because it will not be there. Once a boat goes, the rights with that boat go with it.