Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

That is right. I try to be good every day. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this subject. When we joined the European Union I was publically opposed to it and I campaigned against it. One of the main grounds on which I campaigned was that we would be selling away forever and a day our fishing rights. At the time the argument was that we would get plenty of money for the farmers. I remember predicting at the time that the day would come when the money for the farmers would reduce because any grant system is vulnerable to reduction and we would find that we had sold the huge wealth that is our fishing waters around the coast.

It annoys me to this day that peculiarly among all the assets of the European Union the one they insist that small countries share with the big countries is the fishing rights. The reasons fishing rights above any other rights must be shared on a communautaire basis is because it suits the big and powerful countries. I put it to the Minister that we can argue around the edges of this but great damage has been done to our potential as a nation to reap a dividend from the fantastic resources we have. My understanding is that we have approximately 4% of the fish available to us but 14% of the waters.

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