Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Connolly. I start off by referencing some of the other speakers. I am not aware of any notification having come forward of the Minister's visits to the ports. I could be wrong but I am not sure that they have. There could be something wrong with the communication in the Minister's Department, because I am not aware of an invitation having come forward. I just checked with my office and there was not one. The other Members are right in what they have said about being notified. We need to address that.

It is always interesting that when the news will be bad, the invitations will be widened out. Everybody else will see this with regard to mica, which is not related to this Bill, in that we get invited when there will be bad news in order that it is deflected. If it will be good news or something else, only the Government will be invited. Looking at the contribution yesterday by the Minister of State, Deputy Heydon, he talked about the need for this Bill. There is no need for it. The Bill is fatally flawed, because it does not provide proper outlets for people who have a problem with it, to go to the courts and have their cases met there. This Bill will end up in the courts after it is passed. This Bill will be passed because the Minister has numbers and it will probably end up in the courts to see where the provisions are proper and right. That is, unfortunately, fair enough, because this House, by proportion of numbers, cannot do it anyway.

A Bill that provides further on the balance of probabilities for something to take place is grand and would be if it were only this administrative procedure taking place, but a criminal procedure also runs alongside this. The mixture of legal positions that we have is probably unique in European terms and maybe that should be dealt with. Perhaps if it was all administrative functions, that might be more acceptable to the industry. There is no doubt the industry is going through a difficult period at the minute of which this Bill is symbolic.

I take issue with some of the previous speakers saying that former Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher stopped this when he was in opposition. That is right. It did. That motion put forward was supported by all the Members, but the key part of that was "when he was in opposition", because I am sure that when Fianna Fáil went into government, it would have been implemented anyway, whether Pat The Cope was here or not. That is the reality of the situation. It is easier to stop things when one is in opposition and then one goes into government and does the exact opposite. We have seen that too often, across the board, in this Parliament, to know it will be any different. While I have much respect for Pat the Cope Gallagher and the work he did in this House, it would have made a difference when he went back into government, because this system would have been implemented regardless.

When the Minister of State spoke about the Bill, he said that serious financial implications arise from the non-implementation of the points system. He went on to say that approximately €24 million, to date, has been lost because of this and that will reach €37 million in 2022. That does not represent serious financial implications. There is no doubt that €24 million and €37 million are significant sums of money. It is a lot of money to any individual in the country, but when the State is talking in tens of billions of euro, as we do for everything, it is not a huge amount of money, nor is it a justification to say we should be doing that because we are losing out on this money. We should be doing it because it is the right thing to do. The Government has agreed it is the right thing to do because it has agreed all this with Europe and it will implement anyway. I do not agree with the outline that the Bill has to be passed and that it will be open to challenge.

The system is unfair. It will be difficult for masters of vessels to manage and it will be interesting to see how it will be implemented, because that will be the crux of it. Many fishermen will be looking to see how the implementation of this will take place and whether it will be done in a fair way. The experience, rightly or wrongly, of many fishermen has been that the Government does not work with them, it works against them, in terms of how they go about their business. That may be wrong but that is the experience and it cannot be discounted, in that they feel that way when dealing with the Government. That is vitally important.

There is no doubt that fishing is and has been at a difficult stage, with Brexit and the implementation of these penalty points. Fishing has always been at a difficult stage. It has always been put on the back burner and left there. For many years, fishermen developed the fishing industry and worked on, in spite of Government policy, rather than because of it, or working with it. If this will be dealt with and if fishing will be put on a sustainable footing into the future, the only way is a complete and utter review of the Common Fisheries Policy.

The Irish Government, whether it is one with a Fianna Fáil Minister, a Fine Gael Minister, a Sinn Féin Minister or whoever is there in the future, is going to have to accept that wrongs have been done going back to the early 1980s. In fact, before we even joined the EU the wrongs had started. The European Union made the conservation of fishing stocks the sole responsibility of the European Commission while our negotiations were taking place. At the time it was the only item that was the sole responsibility of the European Commission. Why was that? It was because Europe was fully aware of what we were bringing to the table and we were not. That is the reality of the situation. We were not aware for a number of different reasons, namely, because the Government was not up to speed on it and because fishermen were not talking to the Government and letting the Government know. Anecdotally, I have heard that the Government would not believe fishermen when they said what they could catch and it reduced that number when it went to Europe to negotiate the Common Fisheries Policy, whereas in France, the French Government increased what the fishermen told it they could catch so they ended up with a bigger total allowable catch.

From that point on we have had a problem and it is coming to a head now. It is coming to the point where there is no more road. No more change can take place and there are no more ways that the emissaries or the Government can turn a blind eye and allow things to happen. There has to be a recognition that the fishing industry has been shafted by Europe and by lack of Government response and support for it over the years. It is not any one Government's fault or any one individual's fault; it is just the fault of the whole system, which has worked against the fishermen. If we are going to put this industry on a sustainable footing we need that acceptance and we need the Government to go out to Brussels and Europe and fight on behalf of the fishing industry, rather than this charade of going out before Christmas every year and coming back with less again and dressing it up as being a success. We have to go out and change the balance of how things are decided so we do not have to do this every year, so the Government is not always fighting for Hague principles and stuff like that to make sure they are in place and maintained. That is the only option for the fishing industry. If we do not do that, unfortunately it is going to continue to decline. It will decline and decline in Killybegs and Greencastle. Burtonport is wiped out already anyway. Right along the coast it is all going to decline and coastal communities will not be able to survive. That will be very detrimental for the whole country. This Dublin-centric development that has always been there is just going to increase and go further and further if the Government allows it to happen. That is sadly what the Government seems to have been prepared to allow to happen. We need to stop that and the only way we can do that is by the Government saying that it has to stop. It must fight in Europe to make sure these things change, stand up and fight properly by saying it is unacceptable and that we want this change and are going to demand it. Then things will come back. Everybody in this House will stand behind the Government and support it in making those changes properly. That is vitally important.

It is symptomatic of the problems that exist that there has been so much resistance to this legislation. This legislation is flawed and it needs to be rehashed and looked at again. There has to be an option for people to have a fall-back and go to the courts if they are not happy. It will cost them a lot of money and they will probably have to fight this again in the courts when it gets through these Houses. That will be very detrimental and will be a retrograde step if that is the case. The Government has had a poor approach to dealing with these issues. The Minister and the Government have let down Donegal farmers and fishermen. Hopefully we will not be let down with regard to the mica situation in the weeks to come but I would not hold out much hope. We have an opportunity now in relation to fishing. If we can do this over the next couple of years we can work together to make this happen Unfortunately, I do not think the political will is there on the Government's side to make that happen.

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