Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

The EU report on behaviours which seriously infringed the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy highlighted the following fines. For fishing without a licence, on average one faces fines of €1,463 in Spain. In Ireland the equivalent amount is €21,400. Some fines proposed in this Bill are ten times higher than the current fines. For a logbook offence in Denmark, one would probably face a fine of €393. In Ireland, the same offence would cost €8,455. In the United Kingdom, if one is found to be fishing for a species which is subject to prohibition, one faces a fine of €2,328. In Ireland, the same offence would result in a fine of €23,125

How this can be considered an equal playing field is beyond me. This gives the impression that not only do we not support the Irish fishing fleet, but we try to stamp it out.

Representatives from the Irish fishing industry have been campaigning for the implementation of a fairer and more appropriate system, with penalties which fit the offence. This campaign has attempted to change the existing legislation. However, the implementation of the Bill in its current form will have an even more detrimental impact on the Irish fishing industry than the existing legislation. These are genuine and serious concerns about some of the proposals in the Bill. I wish the Minister of State would come clean and inform the House on the real thinking behind them because nobody seems to understand them.

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