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

The Minister will have been engaged in extensive discussions with fishers around the coast and he will know better than most the disaster that they see this deal as. It should be remembered that this was an industry already struggling. I met with the Foyle Fishermen's Co-operative yesterday online and they advised me that, in Donegal alone, as many as 400 jobs are threatened on the back of this appalling deal. The Minister will be aware that our fishing industry acted in good faith, working with other member states' fishing representatives, and they were shafted here. The burden that the Irish fishing industry is being asked to take is shocking. They do not want financial compensation. They want to fish the abundance of fish in the waters around our country. The Government voted down an amendment from Sinn Féin yesterday that mandated the Minister to go back and renegotiate the Common Fisheries Policy to ensure that the Irish fishing industry gets a fair share of the fish in its waters. The Government voted down that carefully worded motion. I ask the Minister now if he will seek to renegotiate the Common Fisheries Policy to get a fair share of the fish in Irish waters for our fishing industry.

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