Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I accept that. It was a typographical error.

On completion of its Detailed Scrutiny of the Island Fisheries (Heritage Licence) Bill 2017, the committee recommended that the Bill would progress to Third Stage, provided the scope is clarified to ensure that island and rural coastal communities are appropriately balanced.

That is what the committee report stated but I wish to add some further comments of my own on how things have progressed since then. This is a very important issue and I am aware the Minister and the Department have a particular view on the Bill, in particular that it might require a money message. Having looked at the reasons given for the money message, I think it is an excuse to block the Bill rather than there being a real need for a money message. That is a separate issue that has been debated widely in this House.

The island communities have worked very hard to try to sustain their livelihoods and life on the islands. It is very difficult to survive on the islands. The State should make sure that traditional island life is made as easy as possible given the difficult circumstances that prevail. In reality, the success of Ireland as a nation will be how we treat people that do not have the same advantages as people living in Dublin, for example, in Dublin 4. We must support traditional methods of fishing and ways of life in a respectful way that allows them to progress and to provide a livelihood for themselves and their families on the islands. I am sure the Minister will agree that life on an island is difficult enough without having to fight constantly against officialdom to ensure that one can survive.

Fishermen have constantly battled but they probably have not been as effective as farmers in terms of fighting their case for a livelihood in this country. Fishermen are diverse as well. Island fishermen are probably the weakest sector in the fishing community and they must be defended. We must ensure they can survive and continue to work using their traditional methods. Island communities landed 0.85% of the national quota in 2018. That is a minuscule amount. Increasing the quota allocation for island communities to 1.5% of the national quota would make no difference to larger fishermen but it would make a difference in terms of the survival or death of island communities. That is well worth pursuing.

The Irish Islands Marine Resource Organisation, IMRO, has done a lot of work in the meantime to try to ensure it can survive and continue. It has tried to meet a lot of the grounds the Department has insisted it must meet in order to be recognised as a producer organisation under the Department's requirements. However, IMRO has hit a brick wall because the Department has said it is a mandatory criterion for recognition that 30% by weight of the total production should be landed into a major port. That is fair enough but IMRO has never come across such a requirement anywhere. The view is that it was introduced at the last stage when IMRO thought it was getting places. That is the problem.

The Minister and his departmental officials will say the last thing they need is another producer organisation to deal with, but the reality is that IMRO is a producer organisation that is working on behalf of the fishermen it represents, while some producer organisations are so big and there are so many different sectors within it that they do not speak with one voice. IMRO is a group that would be speaking with one voice and it is vitally important to support it. It behoves the Dáil, the Government and the Department to facilitate people as much as possible. That is the road we should be going down. I urge the Minister to consider meeting with IMRO to explain the criteria it must fulfil. It has gone a lot of the way towards trying to meet the requirements and it might be able to go the rest of the way if the Minister were to meet with IMRO and explain the situation to it. That might go some way towards progressing the issue, which is vitally important.

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