Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

However, we should consider the catch. The capacity for catch is just as high now. That said, I am not happy with the state of the industry. We have the capacity to expand the fishing industry but we need to use the tools available to us to do that. In recent weeks we have been trying to encourage the catch in Irish waters by non-Irish trawlers to be landed in Irish ports to be processed and graded here, which can add significant value to the processing sector in Ireland. We are doing what we can to expand the industry and we will do the same with aquaculture which has great potential for growth and expansion.

However, the idea that Deputy Ó Cuív seems to suggest that we can go over to Europe and demand that we get back all our quota from other countries and expect other people to support us and vote for that is incredibly naïve. Let us deal in reality here. Ireland needs to continue to get the best possible deal we can on quota allocation and we will fight for that every December when quota allocation is on the table. In the discussions on the Common Fisheries Policy we are talking about the strategic development of the European fishing industry of which Ireland is a part. For what it is worth, the European Union does not regard Irish waters as Irish waters but as EU waters, which Ireland has a responsibility to monitor and control. That is the political reality of what we are dealing with.

In discussing what is being proposed as fisheries policy up to 2022 we need to defend ourselves against proposals that will further undermine the Irish fishing industry. The proposal on individual transferable quotas, or fishing concessions as the Commissioner likes to call them, should not become a reality. We are not alone on that because yesterday the German and French Ministers spoke out against it. We are already building an alliance of countries that have real concerns over the ITQ proposal. Ireland has led that debate and will continue to do so.

Ireland is also leading the debate on the mackerel issue the Deputy raised. We have successfully called for trade sanctions against Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The Commission has reassured us that it will have proposals for a legal base to implement sanctions by the start of October. What is happening to mackerel stocks at the moment is disgraceful, particularly in Faroese waters. The ship Deputy McHugh mentioned is the Lafayette, a Peruvian-registered vessel, which is the largest floating fish-processing factory in the world. It has come to Faroese waters because they do not have the capacity to process the volumes of mackerel they are catching at the moment. So they are doing it at sea and bringing in mercenaries to do it. That is what is happening to European mackerel stocks which in the past we shared with the Faroese, but their take was approximately 4% of overall quota.

We are doing a considerable amount about things over which we have some influence and control. Ireland is taking the lead in the debate on the mackerel issue for good reason because of the impact it will have on our fishing fleet. Mackerel is the most important stock to our fleet and is a €3 billion industry in the European Union and a big segment of that comes to Ireland. We are acting in areas where we have influence and we can impact on decision making. We will do that in negotiations on mackerel and will also try to do that to the best effect possible in the ongoing negotiations on the Common Fisheries Policy. We are in a position of some influence because everybody realises at this stage that the final agreement on the CFP will happen during the Irish Presidency in the first half of 2013, as will be the case in all likelihood for the CAP also.

I thank the Deputies for their frankness in contributing to the debate this evening. I certainly got a strong message from them and that will impact on the Government's thinking.

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