Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Barry and, possibly, Deputy Boyd Barrett.

In May 2019, the previous Fine Gael Government, propped up by Fianna Fáil, declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. So far, more than two years on, even with the Green Party now in government, those in power have completely failed to follow up that declaration with adequate action. The science is very clear on this. We must deal with the climate and biodiversity crises together. This is especially the case when it comes to our oceans. A diverse array of species inhabit our coastal and offshore waters. There are more than 1,000 different species of marine algae, 560 species of fish, 58 species of shark, ray and chimaera - a shark nursery was discovered just a few years ago - 24 species of dolphin, two species of seal and 23 marine bird species. There is so much there but it is all at risk.

Overall, our marine environment is in bad health, severely degraded and in rapid decline. It is no wonder, when the threats relating to climate action and warmer ocean temperatures, ocean acidification, raw sewage run-off and overfishing by industrial fishing fleets are considered. The ocean is also the earth's biggest carbon sink, holding the most carbon on the planet. Researchers recently discovered that bottom trawling, where a weighted net is dragged across the sea bed, scraping the sea floor and scooping up everything in its vicinity, releases as much carbon globally as the entire aviation industry.

For all those reasons and many more, it is vital that, without any more delay, we begin expanding our marine protected areas. We need to set up a marine protected area agency, which is necessary to co-ordinate what areas are designated, how they are managed and how they are actually being protected. There needs to be real engagement with coastal communities and small fishers. Carving out 30% of our waters and protecting them will mean less fishing, however, which undoubtedly will impact on fishers and their families. We have to work to ensure that small fishers have full financial supports during this process into the future, have no loss of income and, in fact, have a guaranteed quality, decent income. That is what a just transition, which the Government was not really interested in hearing yesterday, is all about. It is about saying that the cost of taking climate action should fall on the big industrial fishers as opposed to the small fishers.

As with nearly every environmental target ever set by this State, we have already missed the target of protecting at least 10% of our waters by 2020.

Now the Government says we will go for 30% by 2030 but I find it hard to believe it will happen, considering we currently have less than 2.5% being protected in any sense.

I underscore that these marine protected areas must actually be protected from industrial and harmful human activities, as pointed out by the Irish Wildlife Trust. We need an alliance of small fishers, environmental activists and workers everywhere to demand this sort of action happens. We need marine protected areas that are networked and protected and we need full supports for all fishers and coastal communities that will be impacted by this. If we continue with business as usual, the mega-trawlers will hoover up the fish, the industrial fleets will continue destroying the seabeds and we will all be left paying a significant price.

I will briefly refer to conditions faced by non-EEA migrants in the fishing sector. There is horrific exploitation of workers based in this country. The kinds of horror stories one hears involve effective human trafficking of migrant workers into this country on boats. They work extremely long hours in dangerous conditions, working overnight day after day, with no protection in terms of health and safety-----

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