Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I believe there is such a thing as lies, damn lies and statistics. If we look at the stock book from the Marine Institute from 2020 and at the total tonnage taken, and its overall value, it will be seen that the total value of the Irish catch was €251,563,000. That was out of a total catch taken from Irish waters by all the EU fleet of €1.62 billion. This is where this 15% comes from. I just checked the stock book for the most recent year, and the catch for last year was even lower - down to €180 million. This is the problem. If the Minister's officials cannot get their head around what we are getting out of our waters for our Irish fleet, how can we ever resolve this issue? We are in serious trouble here if they do not accept the scale of the injustice.

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