Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I had good and constructive engagement with the fishers in west Cork over the weekend. I visited Castletownbere and Union Hall. We had a matter of fact meeting to go through the issues in a sensible way, listening to what the fishers had to say and identifying the issues. The country was faced with a no-deal Brexit or a trade and co-operation agreement. A no-deal Brexit would have been catastrophic for the Irish fishing industry, given how dependent our pelagic fleet is on fish in British waters and always was. It was always a problem even prior to Brexit and once Brexit was contemplated at all. That said, there was, in our view, an unfair burden on Ireland arising out of that agreement, which we are pursuing with the Commission. That leads to the key item at the meeting. At the meeting I had yesterday, I initiated a social dialogue forum with the fishing industry and I met with the producer organisations and fishing representatives from the different categories and sectors for more than two hours to go through these issues. One is the Common Fisheries Policy review next year, which will give us an opportunity to see if we can claw back some of the quota and share that we lost as a result of Brexit. Another issue is the control plan.

Deputy Collins is being somewhat disingenuous.

The Department did not remove the derogation in respect of the weighing of fish in our factories. As he knows, the Commission initiated proceedings and an investigation into the plan. Its implementing decision revoked the approval of the Irish control plan for the weighing of fishery products which had been submitted. We received that Commission implementing decision revoking the approval of the Irish control plan submitted for the weighing of fishery products. The SFPA must now respond to that. This is a very serious issue for all the fishers. One of the reasons I was in Union Hall and Castletownbere was to witness at first hand the impact of this decision.

We also need to engage with the Commission on that. Rightly or wrongly, the Commission's assertion is that there was overfishing of our quota and it wants to claw some of that back. We are resisting that. We will need to deploy all legal tools at our disposal to resist it. That brings me back to a point I made to all the groups yesterday. We need to reset our relationship with Europe regarding fishing. The Commission's perception of how we are enforcing the Common Fisheries Policy in Ireland and our perception of that are miles apart. Standing up and attacking the Government on these issues is missing the point. We need to engage with the European Commission on these issues. I intend to engage with it. I intend to work closely with the fishing industry to go through the items I have just referenced and other items that were also raised.

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