Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the Chairman, Deputy Andrew Doyle, the members of the sub-committee, the staff on their patience and encouragement, and everybody who contributed during the deliberations before we finalised the recommendations.

Coming from a coastal community, I have seen a marked change from the late 1950s or 1960s onwards. At one time, 40 or 45 years ago, it was a hub of activity, with fairly high incomes for most people in the sector. Now it is absolutely decimated, except for a few people who have access to, and effectively own, a national quota. That comes down to the management of the various fishing policies, which were primarily designed to facilitate parochial political decisions, rather than to look at the overall benefit to our coastal communities. Coastal communities have been decimated and there has been no improvement for many years. One would hope this report, if implemented in its totality, can go some way towards addressing the deficiencies, inequalities and wrongs that are there and try to bring about a situation where a fishing industry can become sustainable and can give hope and opportunity for young people to take up the industry.

The Minister of State, Deputy Kehoe, is reading out the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine's statement regarding the v-notching of female lobsters. A compensation package of 80% is laudable and I fully support it. Having said that, it should have been in place for some time. Anybody who knows the sector, and the people involved in lobster, and crayfish fishing in particular, has seen a huge change in 30 or 35 years. I have fished lobsters and if someone had 100 or 150 pots in the past, they could make a living from it. Now most people who are fishing lobster pots are fishing 500 plus "soft eyes", from which there is no escape. Many of them are up to 1,000 pots and the catches they are getting now are less than what we were getting with 100 pots going back to the late 1970s or early 1980s. That gives an indication of how affected the stocks are now.

In respect of salmon fishing, which has been mentioned by Deputy Pringle, fishing used to be very seasonal. Lobster and crayfish fishing usually started around the end of March and went into April and May. Salmon fishing came in around June or July and went on to the end of August. It then went back to lobster fishing and then people might be involved in whitefish fishing and trawling for the winter. Each sector got a rest. When the salmon sector was effectively banned, those who were involved in that sector went exclusively into lobster and crayfish. The consequence of that has been a depletion of those stocks and more and more pressure being put on them. We are seeing the outcome of that.

I could never for the life of me understand the banning of salmon fishing. The pretext was that stocks were being depleted because of the driftmen who were fishing off the coast. Obviously, this was to ignore probably the greatest threat to salmon stocks, namely, river pollution. Nobody ever looked at that. The driftmen were scapegoated and were taken out of the equation. It affected our coastal communities and, in particular, our islands.

If we are to reinvigorate our fishing sector, all of those aspects must be looked at. In fairness, that report has looked at every aspect that is affecting rural Ireland. We have made a recommendation in section 2 that "one Government Department or Agency should have more marine-related activities brought under its aegis". That is self-explanatory. It needs that type of attention and representation if it is to make a comeback. Another part of our recommendations relates to the need to develop an inshore coastal management policy. Again, that is easily done if the political will is there. All those recommendations come down to political will. If the political will and commitment are there, these can be recommended and can go some way to addressing the situation.

Quota distribution has long been a big bone of contention for me. People are tied to the Common Fisheries Policy so they are dependent on the Government to fight for extra quotas and so on. The Government keeps saying it cannot get extra quotas. I will never accept that, but we must put up with what we have. The mackerel quota, or the mackerel national asset, as I would call it, is owned by 23 boats. Can anybody here or anybody on this island tell me that is justified? The herring quota has also been parochialised by the relevant Ministers to their respective areas. Many mackerel people could not get a quota because they did not have records to say they were fishing herring and so on up to that point in time. The reality is that all those people in the south west, south east and up along parts of the west coast have fished it throughout my lifetime. I have seen herring being driftnetted, not just trawled. Now these people cannot get a quota because there is no historical record that they were involved in it. The reason for this is that fishermen were on a very low income and they were paying no tax because they were not making enough to pay tax, so there was no record of them having paid tax and they are excluded. They have had no returns. They were being put in a situation where they were liable for tax and so forth. That is why they are excluded and it is not right.

Aquaculture is another one of our opportunities to develop, but it has taken a big hit, particularly regarding the attempted imposition of a huge salmon farm in Galway Bay without any effective negotiation with local communities. This has left a bad taste in many people's mouths. I fully support aquaculture and I support salmon farming.

It is a way for coastal communities to make a living but it must be done in consultation with local people, and there must also be a dividend. No matter what one does, whether it is renewable energy or whatever, it has to be done with consultation, and there must be a dividend for the host communities. If the issue is looked at in that way, we can go some way towards getting people to buy into it.

Recommendation 14 states that "consideration should be given to exclusive access to vessels under 10 metres ... within the national 12 mile limit". Looking back on it, we probably tied it to vessels too small. It could be for vessels up to 15 metres. That would give an income to many boats that fish exclusively within the 12 mile limit. It could result in the survival of much of the fishing fleet. One must remember that 85% of boats in the fishing fleet are under that size. It is something that could make a difference for many fishermen.

Welfare was mentioned by Deputy Pringle. For the many who do not understand, all fishermen are self-employed. Share fishermen are self-employed. The boat might be tied up for three or four months but, by virtue of being self-employed, the fisherman does not have any entitlement to social welfare payments. My party has done a lot of work on that. Now the committee has done a good bit of work on it stating that voluntary class P PRSI contributions would overcome that, but it is a matter of getting that out there and getting skippers, boat owners and crew to buy into it.

Fishing tourism has been mentioned. There should be a joined-up approach to this among coastal communities, both onshore and offshore, so that they can work together for the benefit of their respective areas.

All this is achievable, but it is down to whether the report will end up sitting on a shelf gathering dust without being implemented. Tremendous work was put in, with all shades of political opinion working together for the common good of rural coastal communities in Ireland. If the report is left to sit there, it is an awful indictment of the political system.

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