Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

For the record, I already met with industry representatives on this issue either last week or at the end of the previous week - I cannot remember - and we went through the issues in detail in preparation for the Council meeting this week. They know my views on this and they know I am not happy about it. We cannot have different treatment for different countries in the same waters. However, Britain is a key ally for us this week in some of the deals we need to get done, so over the next three days we need to balance our ability to get a good deal for Irish fishermen, across all species, with the need to raise a significant red flag on this issue to ensure our fleet does not get different treatment from any other fleet just because it can apply more political pressure. It is a question of boxing clever politically so that the TAC negotiations, as well as this issue, are resolved satisfactorily.

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