Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I shall do my best. I wanted to respond to Deputy Sheahan as the Department and the Minister of State, Deputy Tony Killeen, have been in constant contact with the Federation of Irish Fishermen as regards working on a joint proposal to the Commission, because we are, as the Deputy said, concerned. I gave a fuller answer in this regard in an Adjournment debate, but we are conscious of the adverse impact on our fleet of the proposed closure in the north-west area. I believe the Commission has not undertaken normal consultation with the industry either through the regional advisory councils or by way of socio-economic evaluation. Therefore we need to work closely with the industry so that we may suggest other measures to help protect these stocks, while having reduced impact on the fleet. For example, we are looking at a revision of the areas of Celtic Sea cod that would reduce Ireland's quota in areas off the south and west coast and give us quota elsewhere where we do not fish. That is where the Commission is, unfortunately, at variance with us because of the new totally allowable catch and quotas for skate and ray, for example, which we are only allowed to fish as a by-catch. We have important directed fisheries for this stock and we do not see the scientific justification for such revision or for reduced catch and also a cut in the total allowable catch and quota around our coast. We do not see the scientific advice which supports this cut as many of the stocks are in good order.

The global discard situation, which is quite scandalous in terms of the amount of fish that is essentially wasted — some 20 million tonnes per year——

See this speech in context