Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

It will be both. There will be monetary support for producer groups. This is one of the matters about which the Commission feels strongly; it wants to empower collective producer groups because that is the best way of ensuring they secure the right prices for their products. We will see strong support for such groups.

We all agree on the point about individual transferable quotas, ITQs. There was a major sigh of relief in my Department when we found we would not have to deal with that issue. We think we have won the battle, but I would not write it off just yet. Some countries are adamant about mandatory ITQs because they want to deal with the problem of having fleets that are too big for their quotas. ITQs allow them to buy up more quota, which is a way of solving their over-capacity problem. I certainly do not want them to solve that problem at the expense of the Irish industry. That is why we have been so defensive on that issue.

I want to mention the difference between the pelagic sector and the whitefish sector. For people who are not familiar with the industry, I will explain that there are major differences between the two in terms of management and discards. In the pelagic sector we are dealing with a much cleaner fishery, and any discards - there should not be a huge amount - are undersized or juvenile fish, which we should be able to deal with through more targeted gear. I believe it will be possible to introduce an obligation to land all catches in the pelagic sector from the start of 2014 onwards and I hope to work closely with the white fish and mixed fishery fleets in Ireland over a phased three to five year period to introduce an obligation to land species alongside more targeted technological measures that ensure we catch the fish that we want to market and sell. In doing that, the stock will recover and we will see increases in our quotas.

It is important to note that Ireland has never had a quota to the value of €750 million quota as it has this year. The idea that we have no fish to catch is not true. Clearly we would like to have a bigger quota and we will work towards that but we will get there by ensuring the stocks are healthy and expanding. Ultimately we want everybody to benefit.

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