Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)

I was not long in the House when I attended a meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at which the former Minister, Deputy Coughlan, was in attendance. Perhaps naively, I asked her whether she had ever gone to Europe and asked for an increase in fishing quota. I got a very disingenuous answer and wondered whether I should not have asked the question. The answer I got was "No". The Minister of State referred to the Hague preferences and so on. When one considers the full picture with regard to fisheries in this country, one realises that since we joined the EEC €400 billion worth of fish has been taken out of Irish waters. It is no wonder the majority of coastal communities voted "No" to the Lisbon treaty. It is well known that fishing communities all over the country strongly rejected the treaty. Nothing is being done now that will encourage people to support Lisbon II. In fact, it is the opposite. This is something the Minister needs to bear in mind when he goes to the December meeting.

A big issue at present is the closure of area 6A under the guise of cod recovery. The Minister of State mentioned in his statement that cod in the Celtic Sea is in a relatively healthy state and he even mentioned that it was the fishermen themselves that introduced seasonal closures of Celtic Sea cod fishing during spawning season. Why was such a system never introduced to area 6A by the EU? The fishermen are the best conservationists out there because they are not in it for a fast buck. We are talking about generations of families that have been involved in fishing. They did this in the Celtic Sea, and I must ask why such a system was not introduced in area 6A rather than a blanket ban.

The proposed ban on fishing in area 6A is a serious issue for fishermen in the north west and also as a precedent for other areas. The European Commission is claiming that this approach is required as a response to the state of cod stocks. It is part of the proposal on total allowable catches and quotas which is to be decided in Brussels in December. The Commission has proposed what would effectively be a complete closure of whitefish fisheries in area 6A inside 100 fathoms for 2009. Under this proposal, only prawn fisheries, with very low by-catches, will be allowed in the area inside 100 fathoms. It is clear there is a serious threat for all, particularly for vessels that have limited potential to move to other areas, that is, to the Celtic Sea. Given other changes in control in the Irish Sea and area 6, this adds to the complications that will be caused by the measure.

Needless to say, we wish to make clear our hostile reaction to this proposal. An extraordinary aspect of the proposal is that it has only been tabled in recent weeks with the quota proposals. It did not go through the consultative stages that all proposals normally go through with the Minister, the Department, advisory committees or regional advisory councils. The European Commission did not even do the Irish Government the courtesy of informing it or consulting with it before publishing the proposals. One must question the Minister's clout at the Commission when it publishes these proposals without even consulting him or any of the other authorities involved in the fishing industry. It gives us little confidence for December to know that the Minister and the Department were not even contacted about this.

The Commission's proposals for total allowable catches and quotas for 2009 involve major cuts in fishing quotas. In fact, the quotas of 22 out of the 25 species listed recently at a committee meeting have been reduced by between 15% and 35%. This represents multi-million euro losses for the industry at time when it is trying to recover from its recent difficulties. It is on its knees due to what it went through during the year with high fuel costs and so on. Apart from the obvious negative effects of lower quotas, there are a number of other issues. The reductions in quotas completely undermine the basis for the decommissioning programme, on which €38 million has been committed in 2008. The programme's aim is to allow vessels which remain in the fleet to have more quota to share, thus increasing their viability in the future. If these proposals go ahead we will have to have another decommissioning scheme. We had decommissioning in the whitefish fleet to bring down the number of boats so there would be a bigger catch for a smaller number of boats. Now the quota is to be decreased. There will need to be another decommissioning if this is to go ahead in its present form. Quota cuts will also have a counterproductive effect by encouraging discards. The word "discard" is a dirty word. Perfectly healthy produce is being cast overboard and this is immoral. Discards have been highlighted as a major problem for a long time. If these proposals go ahead in their current format, it will only force people to discard more fish. The quota cut for prawns is totally unjustified because the scientific advice called for catches to be kept at 2007 levels which penalises Ireland simply for catching near enough to its full quota. This should be high on the Minister's list of priorities come December.

Another feature of the quota cuts is the fraudulent approach based on average catches in recent years rather than average quotas. We simply cannot have more quota cuts. We must adopt a new approach based on sound science, as the Minister of State said. At a recent meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the science available from the Marine Institute was questioned. This science should take account of the regional, social and economic aspects in a partnership approach. The present approach is not helping. It does not help stocks or fishermen and it discredits the whole system.

The Hague Preferences to which the Minister of State referred, were negotiated by Dr. Garret FitzGerald in 1976. We have benefited from additional quota based on a complex formula. The Hague Preferences are an integral part of the share out of quota although technically they have to be approved each year. The Minister of State said that other EU countries attack the Hague Preferences every year and these must be copper-fastened.

We are dealing with statements on the Agriculture and Fisheries Council but I have to ask what is the state of the Cawley report. What is the Government strategy? A massive investment package was announced. Only part of the decommissioning identified as being required has been delivered. When will the money left over from decommissioning be spent? Will the rest of the Cawley report be implemented?

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