Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

He stated that 6.7% of Irish landings were inspected, while 33% of the non-Irish landings were inspected. That is a total distortion. A large percentage of the non-Irish vessels are landing outside of this State, while almost 100% of Irish vessels are landing here. That is a distortion and it is misleading and should not have been in the Minister's speech because it does not bear out the reality.

I attended a meeting yesterday in Athlone. It was an honour to be there, but it was also depressing to see genuine men and women congregating and giving up a day's work, possibly two if they had far to travel to attend, to try to get justice. They were trying to lobby every elected representative and political party in order to do so. I applaud them on how reasonable they have been to date. They have given us every opportunity to resolve matters. To do so we have to return to the European Union to tackle the Common Fisheries Policy to get justice and assume jurisdiction and sovereignty over our own waters.

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