Dáil debates

Wednesday, 31 March 2021

Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions

 

1:05 pm

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

I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. He said he consulted with the industry but he obviously did not listen to it or to the fishermen's groups. Listening to his reply, it is clear he has no future vision for the fishing sector in Ireland beyond decommissioning. He has no honest answers for the Government's shambolic handling of the Brexit negotiations, from which we came out the worst in Europe.

I welcome the Taoiseach's sudden change of heart in setting up a fishing task force in February. A few months previously, in November, when I requested a task force for west Cork he more or less called task forces a waste of time. Why has the Government not been able to secure a bluefin tuna quota for the Irish fishing industry? Other EU countries are negotiating quotas additional to those they have already and we have none. The crisis this fishing sector is going through is not only affecting the larger fishermen. It will also have serious implications for the inshore sector in this country. If the Government's only solution is a decommissioning process that will lead to numerous job losses along our coastline and west Cork in particular, what is its solution in respect of these job losses? I have spent years in the Dáil pleading with this Government and that which preceded it to fight and save our fishing industry from Brexit. I pleaded with the Taoiseach during the negotiations to form a Government to appoint a Minister for fisheries and he refused. In layman's terms, if this Government was a company that dealt with its affairs the way the Taoiseach and his Government have dealt with the fishing industry in Ireland, both he, as CEO, and his board would have been fired months ago for their incompetence and shocking handling of our most precious resource.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.