Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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I welcome that the witnesses mentioned we need to stay within the scientific limits. There are biological caps and limits to what we can do. How the EU is managing this is clearly not respecting those limits. This is an area where science is hitting politics and, unfortunately, Ireland is not winning the political game at the EU table. There will still be legislation and statutes which the EU has to operate within. At what point does it become a legal case if the EU is not doing something it should be doing and is not sharing this resource fairly? Is it something Ireland should be bringing from a legal perspective? It appears that year after year the negotiations do not work. Ireland gets overlooked in this and has for decades. We have to change how we deal with it and how we respond to it. There are quite a few legal mechanisms within the EU. Is that something Seafood Ireland Alliance has looked at or is it something the Government should look at?