Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Island Fisheries (Heritage Licence) Bill is about ensuring people who live on the islands have a future and about facilitating their right to maintain a way of life they have had for centuries. The problem at the moment is that under the Common Fisheries Policy many small fishermen on our islands are not able to have a living. Working in conjunction with the Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation, IIMRO, we developed the heritage licence scenario. The Bill is designed for people who live on the islands and want to make their living from fishing and will try to allocate a portion of the quota to the island fishermen. In providing for this, the Bill facilitates the islandmen in having a future and the continuation of traditional fishing practices on our offshore islands. It provides that the issuing of a licence to island fishermen will be confined to people who are habitually resident on one of Ireland's offshore islands and are engaged in small-scale coastal fishing to earn a livelihood. Small-scale coastal fishing is defined as fishing from a vessel of less than 12 metres in length and not using towed fishing gear. We are putting in restrictions to ensure it cannot be expanded to anyone else and the licences cannot be traded or sold off, as has happened in the past. They will be non-transferable and will be in force only when the holder of the licence is on board the vessel. In other words, one person cannot have several boats. This ensures it is about the small fishermen on the island having a future. The enactment of the Bill will involve a transferable community island quota, such as has been done in other jurisdictions in the EU.

Much of the work that went into this Bill was done by the island fishermen themselves, who came to us looking for a solution to their problem. This is an attempt at such a solution and we would appreciate the support of the Government. People on the islands feel they are disadvantaged not only by their geography but by the erosion of their traditional way of making a living by legislation brought in by Brussels and enacted here. I appeal to the Government to support the Bill.

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