Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister has repeatedly said that the Bill simply reinstates the position that pertained up to 2016, so in other words, it is no big deal. However, I am one of the many Deputies who vehemently disagree with that position and believe this is a very dangerous Bill. As other Deputies have said, nobody in here has any massive objection to Northern Irish fishermen getting access to our six nautical mile zone. We are talking about neighbourliness and so on and no one has a problem with that. There is, however, a very big problem with Dutch corporations flying Northern Irish flags of convenience coming to our inshore and decimating our natural resources. That is what this is about. It happened to our mussel seed, until the case taken before the Supreme Court in 2016. It was devastated by foreign boats. Available mussel seed dropped from 30,000 tonnes in 2002 to just 2,400 tonnes in 2013, pillaged by foreign interests with zero interest in fishing sustainably in our inshore. That is what is at stake here.

The Minister made the point in the Seanad that things have moved on, the ownership model has changed and when Senators voiced their concerns about what was going on, the Minister more or less said there is nothing we can do to stop it, that is the way it is, it is free movement and all that. We strongly disagree with those statements and there is something we can do. First, we can insert into this legislation a provision that only boats owned and operated in the North by people either resident there or in the Republic gain inshore fishing rights provided under this Bill. If the Minister is not prepared to do that, his real objective is exposed. The other option is to put this entire Bill into the bin. Both of those options are dramatically better than pushing this through today with unseemly haste.

IIt is not a case of moving with the times, European free movement or whatever buzzwords the Government is fond of. It is 100% standard practice for national authorities to retain control of the six mile zone and to restrict access to same to local boats if they want to. That is their prerogative and there is nothing in European fisheries legislation that says we have to open it up to foreign boats. It is entirely a choice that the Government is making. That is what it is. Equally, the Supreme Court did not instruct the Government to introduce a law in this area. All that it said was that the previous informal arrangement was illegal because it had no basis in law. The choice to legislate is entirely the Minister's choice and it is on his head if our inshore is turned into a wasteland, as it will be if he does not agree to the amendments that we have put forward. That would address the issue of the foreign boats but without that we are talking about standing over a wasteland.

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