Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

We are back to fishing. I recently accompanied President Mary McAleese on a three day official visit to Spain. During the visit, on 21 March 2011, I arranged a bilateral meeting in Madrid with Rosa Aguilar, Minister of Environment, Rural and Maritime Affairs and who is the Spanish Minister with responsibility for fisheries, to discuss the planned reform of the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, and to identify areas of mutual interest to both Spain and Ireland. Both countries participate in and rely on similar fisheries and markets for seafood products. Those realities mean we have much in common in striving for an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable fishing sector to 2012 and beyond.

Deputy Daly will be aware of this because he knows his constituents well. We have much of common interest with Spain in terms of the review of the Common Fisheries Policy, but we also disagree with Spain on many things. We were open and blunt about the areas on which we disagree in terms of access to quota, how quotas are managed within countries and whether they are traded or considered a national asset that is distributed by government. The latter is very much the Irish position. Otherwise, one would find that quota would simply be traded out of this country, as has happened in the United Kingdom, which has devastated certain elements of the fishing industry there.

We have common interests as well in terms of ensuring we maximise the volume of money available in the next round of the Common Fisheries Policy and also in other environmental management areas such as fish discards. I have a particular interest in the area. As a Member of the European Parliament I was a member of the fisheries committee. I pushed for a new approach towards discards. Unfortunately, we throw hundreds of thousands of tonnes of dead fish back into the sea each year because of by-catch or quota restrictions and a whole series of other reasons. We can be much more intelligent about how we manage discards in the fisheries sector. I would like to see Ireland and Spain working together to try to find solutions in that regard. The Spanish Minister is very keen to do the same.

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