Denis O'Donovan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail)

The greatest fear I have for the fishing industry relates to the level of uncertainty as to what will happen next year. For several years, the Government has spent millions in refurbishing boats and providing new white fish fishing vessels. Up to €100 million was spent and the fishing industry was encouraged to refurbish existing boats and purchase new, better and safer boats. That was not before time. In my home town of Castletownbere, for example, the average age of the fishing vessels ten years ago was 35 years. These clapped out and unsafe bangers have been replaced by a good fleet.

On the one hand, therefore, we are encouraging fishermen to invest in boats. Some have borrowed up to the hilt to do so. I know a family man who borrowed 85% of the value of his vessel — a huge investment. What are the implications of this strategy for the future of the fishing industry? The most critical issue for the industry is to ascertain the direction in which it is going. I do not refer to the next election. Irrespective of politics, we must set out a strategy for the next five or ten years. If we do not do this, we may as well tie up the boats, whether in Killybegs, Rossaveel, Castletownbere or wherever. If the industry does not have a future, the Government should give the political signal that this is so.

It is wrong that certain people who have never had their hands torn by nets or trawls or washed fish scales from their faces or beards should sit in their ivory towers, or, more appropriately, the crow's nest, dictating what fishing policies should apply. We are the people who know what the policy should be, whether we are backbenchers or Opposition Members. If the fishing industry is not given such direction before the year is out, it will face a tsunami. In such a scenario, having demolished the Irish fishing industry and fishing fleet, we will see, in ten years' time, Russian and Spanish trawlers within ten miles of Mizen Head or Fastnet Rock fishing the stocks we have left behind.

The major problem in regard to the future of the fishing industry is a European dimensional problem. At EU level, including the Parliament and the Commission, including Commissioner Borg, there is no understanding of the rape and pillage that has been done to Irish waters, not alone now but in the past 20 years.

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