Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Earlier this year, representatives of the fishing sector from across Ireland sailed to the ports of Cork and Dublin and called for fair quotas. They called for protection of the future of the industry and sector. Among those fishers were many from non-EU countries. Together with their fellow crew members and friends, they called for fairer quotas and the protection of the future of the fishing industry. I was there. I heard the speeches, met the non-EU fishers and talked to them and they called together in one voice for the end of the atypical scheme that has not served them well. They called for this because the scheme is flawed. It is not working.

I ask the Minister of State to immediately enact the process to end the atypical scheme and replace it with a scheme that works, protects non-EU workers and removes the constant fear of deportation in which they live. It is so they do not have to go through the bureaucratic, arduous process of reapplying year after year to get back into the atypical scheme or back into contracts and have the same rights as their fellow crew members and friends, with whom they are shoulder to shoulder and side by side on these boats doing quite dangerous, hard work. Will the Minister of State please listen to the calls of the fishing sector and the non-EU fishers in the industry, who we need because fishing has been seen time and time again as a less viable way of earning an income? They need to have a scheme that works for them, protects them and serves them. I ask the Minister of State to begin that process straight away. I thank the Minister of State.

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