Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The treatment of Irish fishermen's rights has been ignored for decades by successive Governments. When we negotiate in Europe and have to hand over any of our rights in these negotiations, we have been handing over the rights of our fishermen and the Irish Sea bit by bit. This has meant our fishermen have had to travel out of their own waters as they fight for a livelihood and watch frustratedly as foreign vessels flood the Irish Sea every day without any rule or regulation to prevent them from doing so. Only two months ago, a small crisis erupted in Irish seas as two Irish fishing vessels from Northern Ireland were detained for fishing within six nautical miles of the Irish coast. Our Government then frantically jumped through every guideline so we could hand over the only rights we had to the coast around Ireland. I was called unpatriotic by a Minister in the Government when I and other Independents pleaded with the Government to stop the panicked handover, and to put the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017 through pre-legislative scrutiny so as to give us time to weigh up all options. However, the Independents in the Dáil were not listened to and the Government, together with Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, panicked to give away the rights of Irish fishermen once again.

Fast forward just two months, and we now see the shocking error we have made as the Scottish Government has made it very clear to this Government that it intends to fully protect its fishermen going forward. It has clearly instructed our Government that it will ban all Irish fishing vessels within 12 miles of Rockall, an area where Irish fishing vessels had previously operated unhindered, fishing haddock, squid and other species. Since this has become public, we have heard calls from all over the Irish political spectrum to intervene but many fishermen have rung me to say these are crocodile tears, as the time to stand up and be noticed was a few months ago when these same politicians handed over our fishing rights without the blink of an eyelid. The frantic rushing through of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill in the Dáil a couple of months ago left huge unanswered questions. All I or any of my Independent colleagues ever wanted was more time to look at that Bill in more detail to see if we could negotiate a better deal. We were ignored by our Government, however, and now we are in a serious situation where the Scottish want us out. We also potentially face further crisis in the fishing industry regarding Brexit, because the British have made it clear that they also want Irish vessels out of their waters after Brexit. The fishermen of this country deserve honest answers. How long has this Government been aware of the Scottish issues with Rockall? Was it aware before the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill was rushed through the Dáil two months ago? Was the Taoiseach aware of this problem? Were Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin made aware of the potential Scottish Rockall crisis in their negotiations around agreeing to vote in favour of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill two months ago? In my view, this is the only bargaining chip Ireland had, and we frantically handed over further fishermen's rights inside the Dáil two months ago. I am convinced that if any political party in this country which had the interests of the people at heart knew of this problem in Scotland, no one in his or her right mind would have thrown away our rights without first having fishermen's rights protected elsewhere.

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