Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I know he is familiar with this issue. He has been to County Donegal, to Killybegs and to Greencastle, where he met with fishermen from the whitefish sector. In the time since he was there, this has become more of a problem, affecting boat owners with boats of 12 metres and less, and fishermen who do a little bit of whitefishing or catching dogfish. They stay away from cod, which is the key point in this matter. We are all interested in sustainability and in the preservation of stocks. When Europe hears of whitefish, it hears cod. We are all interested in the preservation of cod. We all want this and the fishermen agree to it. However, there are other whitefish that can be fished in the Irish seas.

We must get the point across to the Minister of State and show him that the present system and interpretation of EU guidelines is not satisfactory in terms of conservation, sustainability and best practice. I will leave it for my colleague to talk about the ins and outs of best practice by the fishermen with regard to the quota system. Rather than days at sea per boat we must look at quantity of fish. Fishermen know when to fish, where to fish and how best to fish. They are the ambassadors of the sea and the people who know best practice. In dealing with the whitefish sector and the overall fishing sector we have left the fishermen out of the loop, even though there are representative bodies.

We must start heeding the guidance of the whitefish fishermen and acknowledge that they are more interested in the quantity quota per fish species rather than days at sea. Unfortunately, we do not have time, but concerning the interpretation of Council Regulation EC/237/2002, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food must explain itself and its methodology. The allocations are completely unsatisfactory in respect of both scope and scale. I hope we can see some movement on this matter in the response of the Minister of State.

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