Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Whether or not we allow access for fishermen on both sides of the Border for up to six nautical miles off the coast of each other's jurisdictions is hardly the biggest problem. What is more important is what type of fishermen we allow. Are we allowing small self-employed business people or all fishing operations, including large corporate fleets? I know plenty of small fishermen who are only interested in sustainable fishing because that is the only way they can maintain a livelihood, by fishing when it is sustainable to do so. Those ethics do not apply to large corporate owners who sail in, take as much as they can and off they go. They just plunder where they can.

Aggressive fishing by Northern Ireland vessels has damaged our sustainable mussel-fishing industry. Michael Crowley from Killinick in Wexford was one of the fishermen who took a case to the Supreme Court. Some of our largest mussel seedbeds are in the south east and I have spoken to many fishermen who are very concerned about huge Dutch multinational corporations with boats that are registered in Northern Ireland coming down to the south coast and destroying the mussel seed stocks. They use a Northern Irish register as a flag of convenience. How can we guarantee that boats registered in Northern Ireland are in fact Northern Irish owned and manned by genuine Northern Irish fishermen? That has to be a crucial issue. Many fishermen are also concerned about UK boats getting access. The Minister said in his press release yesterday that he would address this registration issue today but it has not been addressed through the amendments to the Bill. The reference to residency in Deputy Clare Daly's amendments seeks to address this registration issue.

I find it very odd that the Government is rushing through this legislation at such breakneck speed simply in order to give a legal basis to what is a 60 year old agreement, a gentleman's agreement, one with no previous legislative basis and that is no longer suitable or appropriate to the modern world in which fishermen now operate. The Minister has acknowledged this point in debates about the Bill. He said the world has moved on quite significantly. If so, why do we not devise a new agreement that accurately reflects the realities of modern fishing? We also do not yet know what the Common Fisheries Policy arrangements will be and the UK Government has already indicated that it will withdraw from the London Fisheries Convention. Very few, if any, Southern-registered fishing boats fish inside Northern Ireland's six-mile limit and it is important to remember that when we talk about neighbourliness or reciprocating the deal. Several of the lads down home have told me that they are run out of the place when they go up off the Northern Ireland coast.

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