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

I am delighted that we are having this long-awaited discussion on fisheries. I thank our leader, Deputy Mattie McGrath, for pushing the matter at the Business Committee on several occasions and eventually getting his way to have this very important debate take place at a very difficult time for Irish fisheries. I have been pushing very hard in recent times to get more debates in the House. In fairness, it was said earlier there are not many Deputies here but everybody took up their slots, bar Labour. In fairness, there is a bit of interest out there in regard to fishing, which is very important, but there needs to be a further and stronger focus, and this is not where we have had our focus recently.

I pushed recently on the Order of Business to discuss the near-ramming incident in the waters off Castletownbere by a Spanish trawler three times the size of an Irish trawler, and I was voted down. It went up on social media that it was raised by a Deputy from west Cork and that this was the wrong way to do business. I do not care how we get to debate fishing in this House as long as we debate it - and do so continuously - and iron out the crisis that is there. I make no apology to any Deputy, to the Minister or to the Taoiseach for raising these issues. The Taoiseach is furious with me, so much so that he tried to mislead the Dáil last week and on several other occasions, which is an issue that is being dealt with through the Ceann Comhairle’s office. I make no apology for putting the fishermen first at every opportunity. If the Business Committee is run by the Government because it has more numbers on it and will not allow the time, I will bring the matter to the House on the Order of Business. I will push these Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies to either press the “Yes” button or the “No” button and we will see how the fishermen react.

I go back over the performance of the past 12 months. Many of the issues that led to the crisis we are in today date from before the Minister's time. I want to make sure that it is not me versus the Minister in any shape or form. I am furious that successive Governments - not the Minister, Deputy McConalogue - have left Irish fishermen to hang out to dry. Unfortunately, the Minister has been left to deal with a complete mess that is the legacy of other Ministers. The whole reason fisheries is at the bottom of the barrel in this country is because we are afraid to mention it and our Governments are afraid to fight the corner of ordinary Irish fishermen.

In the negotiations for Government in which I was involved in 2016, I brought up the idea of a senior Minister for fisheries. In 2020, I was involved in discussions with Deputies Micheál Martin, Varadkar and Eamon Ryan. Bantry Hospital was also a very important issue for me but this was the other red-liner, and I said they would not get my support unless there was a senior Minister for fisheries. They refused me point-blank and now we have the complete evidence of their inaction and the way they let this country down and left fishermen in tatters.

To look at the performance in the past 12 months under the Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, we have had five Ministers with responsibility for dealing with these issues. When the Deputy took over as Taoiseach, what was the first thing he did in those early weeks? He signed into place the completely flawed penalty points system that has proven to be a terrible infliction on Irish fishermen, when he should have stood up for them and refused to sign until the issues that had to be rectified were rectified. He did not do so. Then, we had a Brexit deal that we failed to negotiate. I pleaded in the House with the Tánaiste, Deputy Varadkar, and the Taoiseach to go in and fight for our rights. Irish Ministers should be negotiating in there, not Michel Barnier. Michel Barnier did a deal but he did not do a deal for the Irish. Mr Barnier did a deal for France and every other country. Ireland was hung out to dry because we had no negotiator at the table at a very crucial time.

We have gone from one crisis to another crisis in the past 12 months.

Everybody is asking questions about the weighing crisis here. Nobody has answered any about the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority. It is an authority of its own. It misled us in the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I was there. The Minister told me afterwards that he and the SFPA knew there was a weighing crisis in December. Why was the fishing industry not informed of that crisis until 5 p.m. on 16 April 2021? Representatives of the SFPA had told the committee the authority worked well with the industry. It did not work with the industry and did not tell the industry about the crisis. The SFPA could have been working towards a solution from December until April but nothing was done and now we have a crisis. It is shocking.

We have found out that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the SFPA have made an agreement that French and Belgian vessels can land fish straight into the back of lorries in Irish ports. Their catches do not have to be sampled, weighed or checked. This is astonishing. Why are we giving more rights to foreign vessels than to Irish vessels? Imagine an Irish fisherman being pushed and tugged with every rule coming down on top of him and this impossible weighing situation. He can see a Spanish trawler park up and they are laughing at us as they fill their lorries without any weighing being done. Does the Minister know what quotas these foreign vessels are bringing in? Does he know the amount of Irish fish on these boats? Does he have any idea what they are doing? They are coming straight in and the boats are not searched to see what catch they have. There is no weighing and there are no problems. They are told to drive on because they have rights but the Irishman has no rights in his own waters.

I do not have much time but I could speak for an hour on these issues. I raised the near-ramming incident involving a Spanish trawler that is three times the size of a Castletownbere trawler. There are many questions about this and I want a special meeting of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine held to resolve it. The SFPA leaves much to be desired. The Naval Service was not able to attend to the incident, through no fault of its own, because it is probably underresourced. I cannot understand why no protection was provided to Irish fishermen on the day in question. It took 12 hours to get out to the location. Imagine what would have happened if the vessel had been rammed. Well done to the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation for the peaceful protest in Cork recently and to those involved in the protests in Ringsend. I fully support them.

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