Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This is a sorry saga. I will give the Minister genuine advice across the floor. He urgently needs to get a grip of the people who run the marine section in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. In all of my eighteen and a half years in politics, I have never come across such wall of distrust between those who a Department are supposed to represent and the Department itself. I have spoken to fishermen and fisherwomen up and down the coast since I took on the role of Sinn Féin spokesperson for fisheries and the marine.

In every single sector, including inshore fisheries, which the Minister knows well, whitefish fisheries, pelagic fisheries and offshore fisheries, they have a huge distrust of those who run the marine section of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. They had to take them to court twice and they were vindicated. They went to the highest court in the land. These people in the Department spent a huge amount of taxpayers' money and they lost again and again.

Fianna Fáil brought forward a motion, led by former Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher, which represented a huge moment because a statutory instrument was voted down for the first time in the history of the State. I read over every single speech that was made, line for line, when we put this annulment motion on the Order Paper and I read them again today. If the Minister reads back what he said and what every single Fianna Fáil spokesperson said that night in comparison with what he has said tonight, he will see that it is like two different people were speaking. It is shocking.

I cannot convey to the Minister how angry these fishing representatives are, many of whom have supported Fianna Fáil through thick and thin over the years. They said to me that we should hold back on this annulment motion, that they would get a meeting with the new Minister because he is from Donegal and that he will understand more than anybody the need to address this issue. They said the Minister would engage with former Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher on the amendments he brought forward to the previous statutory instrument. Those amendments would have solved the problem, addressed the concerns of the fishing industry and built trust at last between those who put their lives at risk to earn a living all around our coast and those who run this Department. It would have been a big and important moment but here we are again tonight.

The Minister's speech reads almost identically to what the former Minister, Deputy Creed, said two years ago. He gave a deeply alarmist speech, lecturing those across the Chamber and talking about the financial cost of the amendments. What about the cost of going to the Supreme Court or the costs for the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation, which will be forced to take a legal case again, which it may well win? This should not be necessary.

One of the comments made by the former Minister, Deputy Calleary, was that we need a Minister of State for the marine. That is what he said in 2018 and he referred to former Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher and his track record. The Minister needs somebody who will get a grip of this Department. The Minister himself will be overwhelmed with all of his immense responsibilities in agriculture. Yet again, the marine section of the Department will be allowed to run riot on its own with no Minister or Minister of State to hold it to account. It will have warned the Minister of all sorts of unintended consequences and told him about the views of Attorneys General and of legal views. It will bamboozle him with all of this.

Yet when one looks at a report from the European Union itself in July of this year, it is very clear that the systems in place all across Europe bear little resemblance to this one. This is a system where on the balance of probabilities somebody can be convicted and have his or her livelihood taken away, whereas if the Minister or I were stopped by a garda, we would have the right to go to a court and would be presumed innocent until proven guilty. If we were found innocent those penalty points would be removed and they would not take effect because the burden of proof would be beyond reasonable doubt. Whoever wrote that script for tonight and said to the Minister that it is acceptable that the balance of probabilities is an acceptable threshold is letting him down and failing him.

The Government may well vote tomorrow night in total defiance of every word said by every one of those Fianna Fáil Deputies. I read through every line spoken by those Fianna Fáil Deputies two years ago and there is not one with which I disagree.

Charlie, I will say it - apologies, I am speaking to the Minister but if I am informal it is because we know each other as Donegal representatives - these representatives of fishing organisations feel betrayed, and if the Government votes against this tomorrow night, the Minister will have a major job to do if he is to reach out to the fishing industry and break down the wall of distrust. He will have to stand up to the senior officials in his Department. It is the view of the people in the fishing community that they are being criminalised and treated like second-class citizens. The Minister must know that from speaking to them. The Minister's actions will only entrench their view even more and push the gap further.

We are an island nation and we have a large marine resource. We should be enriching coastal communities and not criminalising them. These are the implications of the decision being made by the Government. Whatever way he votes tomorrow night, the Minister must urgently reflect on the need to stand up to those officials and make a stand as a Donegal man against those officials on behalf of the people he represents.

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