Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This feels a bit like Groundhog Day for this statutory instrument and, indeed, for the EU Common Fisheries Policy. I am unsure what has changed since the High Court and the Supreme Court struck down this statutory instrument, or what has changed since Fianna Fáil and its coastal representatives voted this down in 2018 in a declaration of support for our fishing communities. Let me say, from this side, that we support this motion and believe the statutory instrument is a blunt instrument which is discriminatory and unjustifiable in its application. If it was wrong in 2016, 2017 and 2018, it is wrong now.

While fishing communities throughout the country are right to be outraged and to feel betrayed by Fianna Fáil and the Taoiseach over this, that does not mean we are opposed to the regulation of the fishing industry or that we oppose quotas for saving the world's oceans from environmental collapse. I am in favour of a quota system and I am well aware that fishing and the way the quota systems work go well beyond what science and nature tell us is unsustainable, and are leading to the ruination and devastation of ocean life. I am also aware that we constantly set quotas above what science tells us is sustainable.

The truth is the Common Fisheries Policy, to which this statutory instrument is attached, is not protecting fish stocks or the greater biodiversity of our oceans. There is and there has been a crisis in our fishing communities and a crisis in our oceans, and both are a by-product of the greater crisis on this planet. When people say the EU fisheries policy has decimated our fishing communities, they are often derided by economists, who tell us to look at the statistics that tell us we have more people employed, we have a greater tonnage of fish catch and we have exported more wealth generated by the fishing industry than we did before we entered the European Union. The reality is that, behind those statistics, the type of employment has changed for the worse, the ability of fishing communities to survive and thrive has changed for the worse and the sustainability of fishing fleets and methods have changed for the worse.

The crisis in fishing is a symptom of a global crisis in our environment, a crisis driven by the same reason and the same basis: the production for profit, regardless of the impact on nature or on human beings. The interests of large agri-food business corporations drive the unsustainable extraction of the earth's wealth and resources, while the interests of the giant oil and gas corporations drive the heating of the globe and the acidification of our oceans.

The European Union policy fits into this matrix despite its claims to the contrary. This debate is not whether people support a system of regulation to protect fish stocks or do not. It is about whether they stand with the small fishing communities or whether they want to pretend that a system of penalty points and unaccountable authority will save the worlds oceans. It will not. It will, in fact, accelerate the trend of driving smaller fishing communities out of business and stacking the cards in favour of the mega-trawlers and the giant agri-food industry. We support the motion.

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