Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

I will share my time with Deputies Eamon Ryan and Ó Caoláin.

This is a serious issue. This policy throws out the baby with the bath water. It will result in our fisheries being totally unprotected. When fisheries are handed back to the stakeholders, they will not be able to afford to keep the staff to continue the good job they do — we can see the good job the staff does in the Moy fisheries in Ballina, for example.

When the fisheries boards confined their activities during the foot and mouth disease crisis, there was a total take-over by illegal anglers. That situation will recur when the people doing such a good job are removed. The Government should reconsider the situation carefully. Similar centralisation happened with the health boards and democracy was taken out of the equation. How will the IFA and other people currently on the boards be represented? We will end up in the same position as with the HSE where democracy has been thrown out the door.

The good work that has been done, such as deprivatisation of fisheries and their return to the State, will be eroded and other resources will no longer be available. This report is no panacea for lack of resources. There are hardly sufficient resources to do the job currently, but taking the path the report recommends means the stakeholders will not be able to cope. The resources will not be there and the staff will not be available. There will be chaos, just like during the foot and mouth disease outbreak when fisheries officers could not do their job and poachers took over.

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