Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is a long way from Wexford but I have some links to Arranmore Island off the coast of Donegal. My parliamentary assistant, Christopher Oonan, has been going there in the summer since he was 12. His girlfriend's family are from the island and many sets of tyres have been worn out in pursuit of that woman. To say islands have been ignored by the State would be a serious understatement. Arranmore is the fifth most populated coastal island in Ireland with a population of 469 in the 2016 census. As its population was 803 in 1981, there has been a decrease of nearly 50%. The current unemployment rate is 52% for males and 40% for females. Almost one in four families on the island are lone-parent families. This deprivation is not unconnected to the fact that fishing has all but ceased besides that for a few non-quota species. I will read some words from Séamus Bonner, a fisherman from Arranmore and secretary of the Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation. He states:

Seasonal fishing has always been key to the way of life on the islands. Taking fish when they were at their best and allowing them to recover in the off season is the island way. Fitting in with the natural way of things comes second nature to islanders.

In more recent times a different way of thinking has come about. Bigger is better is the order of the day. The outcome of this has been bad for island communities who depend on fishing to make a living and allow islanders to stay on the islands.

Instead of a varied fishery, islanders are forced by the existing quota system to fish for non-quota species such as crab and lobster, all year round. This is not only unsustainable for the islands and puts massive pressure on the few fisheries we have access to. It cannot last. The Bigger-is-Better policy has failed us.

Small changes can have big effects on the islands, we see the results in our school numbers and our young people having to leave the islands for work.

Islanders have recognised the need for change to our way of thinking on fisheries for a long time now. We have organised, first regionally, then nationally. Islanders from Donegal, Mayo, Galway and Cork have come together to work out a way forward.

The Joint Oireachtas sub-committee report on fisheries in 2014, which this bill draws its ideas from, charts a way through EU and national rules.

The Common Fisheries Policy set by the EU, recognises that islands are different and need special consideration and support. It is written into the CFP foundations:

Small offshore islands which are dependent on fishing should, where appropriate, be especially recognised and supported in order to enable them to survive and prosper.”

The islands heritage license bill being debated today provides for this support. It allows fair access to CFP quota species so that island fishers can fish seasonally in tune with natural cycles and the weather.

It provides for low-impact island boats to earn an income for island families which in turn will support the islands all along our coast. Small-scale fishing is the way forward for a fairer Common Fisheries Policy.

I come from a county which does not have much in the way of islands. We have Bannow Island, which is not really an island, and the Saltee Islands and Keeragh Islands. In any case, we do not have island fishermen but we do have many fishermen of various shapes and sizes and some, like the island fishermen, have seen their traditional culture slowly eroded by many different factors. We have salmon net fishermen on our river in the south east. They used to build traditional cots which they then used primarily to fish and sometimes to race in regattas. Whenever the season allowed, they used traditional net-fishing practices to catch perhaps one or two salmon a day. These traditional fishermen were one of the first groups to get the bullet when Inland Fisheries Ireland decided to tackle the decline of the north Atlantic salmon stock. The major industrial polluters got a pass to warm the waters around our island and further afield. The agricultural industry got a pass for eutrophication and water extraction on our rivers. Coastal salmon farmers got a pass to spread sea lice and to forget to report salmon escapes. There is a tail race on the Slaney where salmon and trout get trapped on a daily basis. It is the biggest problem facing salmon stocks on the Slaney and Inland Fisheries Ireland pulled out hundreds of fish on a few occasions in recent years. The same authority cannot tell me how many times it has inspected this tail race because it does not disaggregate inspections.

My point is simple. Small, traditional fish catchers on islands or rivers were taken out of the equation. Major fish killers continued to operate with immunity and are subsidised to continue in many cases. This Bill seeks to protect a small but important group of fishermen, which I welcome. While legislation can dictate that certain groups should be allowed to fish, it cannot guarantee fish. The journey cycle of a salmon is one of the most incredible feats of nature and the obstacles that the north Atlantic salmon faces to survive and spawn are incredible. The biggest of these obstacles are created by man and until we address these factors that lead to declines in fish stocks, Bills such as this, while important, are somewhat secondary in the bigger scheme of things. There are many traditional coastal fishermen in Wexford and east Waterford, including Dunmore, Duncannon, and Cheekpoint, who rejected the salmon hardship scheme. When the Government paid for a buy-out of Irish salmon drifter licences, not everyone sold out. Some people waited, in good faith, for stocks to recover. That was 11 years ago and it will be 12 years this summer. Much of what I have already said about island fishermen and their practices applies to these small-scale coastal fishermen too. We seem to punish the smaller fishermen and reward the big boats and supertrawlers.

Conservation of our fish stocks is vital but the traditional fishermen in Wexford and Waterford can still offer a sustainable fishing future. Most of their boats are under 10 m in length and these fishermen only spend approximately half a year on the water. Might the Minister support affordable, comprehensive or polyvalent licences and capacity for these men who have been waiting for too long, in recognition of their patience and loss of earnings? Will the Minister at least meet traditional coastal fishermen in Wexford? Wexford is consistently shown to be one of the most deprived counties in Ireland, not unlike the economic situation islanders find themselves in. Surely, we need to consider how the lives of people in these communities have been further devastated by the salmon licence buy-out and lack of improvement in the salmon stock. All fishermen, whether island, coastal or river, would be served much better if the Government started to tackle the real problems with fish stocks and climate change.

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