Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 13 and 16 together.

I mentioned the discards issue earlier. Every European country has a problem with discards. When fishermen catch fish which are out of quota or are not large enough to be marketable, they are thrown over the side of the boat because it costs money to bring them ashore. The proportion of discards are considerable in certain Irish stocks. It serves no one's interest that juvenile fish are being caught, killed and thrown over the side. The industry wants to see a new policy that can reduce and, it is hoped, eliminate quotas for certain fisheries, and I certainly want to see change in this area. It is not defensible morally or from a food perspective and it does nothing for the revival of fish stocks. The Commissioner has taken a hard line on the issue and intends to put an end to discards on a phased basis between 2014 and 2016 by forcing fishermen to land everything they catch. I do not believe that approach is workable because it will not bring the industry with us. What is needed is a scientific approach to look at individual stocks one after the other and examine technical ways in which we can use the quota system, but more importantly technical measures in terms of how we design nets to allow juvenile fish to escape and to be more targeted at the fish we catch. Whether it is a cod by-catch when fishermen are fishing for prawns in the Irish Sea or a whiting or haddock by-catch when one is fishing for cod in the Celtic Sea we need to use the technology, design and mesh size that is available to ensure that we are more targeted at catching larger marketable fish and releasing the fish that we do not have a quota to catch and that are too young to sell. That process will take time but it is already under way from an Irish point of view.

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