Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

I thank the Deputy very much. I hope the Acting Chairman will allow me the extra few minutes.

I have a long interest in eel fishing through family members and the Barrow catchment where I live. I know a huge number of eel fishermen who have lived for generations in small lock houses along the Barrow who catch a few eels. They catch brown eels in the summer in fyke nets and silver eels in winter in the first floods. The most amazing scene in County Carlow or County Kilkenny where I had the privilege to be elected is to see those eels in the first big floods of autumn slithering across our fields into small streams to reach the major catchments on their voyage to the Sargasso Sea.

The approach to the eel ban is fundamentally flawed. We could have an eel ban forever in this country and it would not solve the problem because the problem is outside of Irish waters. We need a Europe-wide study on what is happening to the elvers. They are the small glass eels that have not yet reached maturity. They come back into our rivers and streams to breed and then travel back down the rivers in the autumn to their spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. They are not there anymore, yet they are being sold in vacuum packs in the French and Spanish markets and are being caught by the Japanese and the Chinese. In spite of that we are imposing a total ban in this country without looking at the cause and the effect.

I am disappointed that we did not get the scientific evidence or have a proper consultation process with the eel fishermen. I would have liked the senior Minister and the Ministers of State to meet with the eel fishermen to discuss the proposed ban. Let us consider what is happening in Holland where the Government is investing €1 million to help progress an eel fishery. The intention is to release the silver eels into the sea and then invest a further €300,000 to buy elvers to put into the catchments in the hope that they will escape through the rivers and back into the sea. What we are doing in this country is fundamentally flawed and flies in the face of scientific reason.

If we are to take ourselves seriously and act on directives from the European Union we must have the scientific evidence to back up such a ban. It is a knee-jerk reaction and I hope we can have consultation and above all, compensation, for the approximately 500 fishermen affected. On my own catchment there are fewer than 50 fishermen. Eel fishing is a long tradition and eel fishermen are conservationists. I am a conservationist and I am a member of a conservationist party but what we have done in terms of the eel ban flies in the face of scientific interest. I look forward to a reversal of the decision at the soonest possible opportunity in order to protect the eel, implement conservation measures and to protect the incomes of eel fishermen. We will not do it alone, we need all of our 27 European Union partners to come together to find out why the elvers are not returning. The problem is not in the Irish waters, it is outside of it and that is where we must begin our research.

See this speech in context