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

The Minister was right when he said it is bizarre. It is quite bizarre, to be quite honest, to think that we are only going to get two hours tonight to debate this hugely important issue of what is basically the destruction of the Irish fishing sector. We will only get through to five or six amendments and then it will be all over and gone, and that is it. Unfortunately, we need more time. It is a bizarre situation in which we find ourselves. It is a bizarre situation to think about amendments our Rural Independent colleagues and I put before the Minister. We will just mention the fee for when a person wants to appeal a wrongful conviction. There is no fee. The Minister never set a fee. This is very unclear in the Bill going forward. Imagine, no one knows what the fee will be. Today, it is the Minister. He might, in fairness, have some sympathy towards the fisherman in that he might put forward a very low charging fee. The next Minister might not be sympathetic and he or she might charge €10,000 for an appeal. I brought up that in an amendment that, unfortunately, we will not reach today.

The Minister said that I said we were rolling around laughing at Brexit. I did not say that. I actually said the nation was rolling around laughing last week in relation to the situation with the Russians where the Irish Government, Ministers and leadership could do absolutely nothing. It took fisherman to come in off the sea to do it. That is why the country was roaring laughing.

With regard to Brexit, I will not go there. I have said often enough that it was a shocking bad deal. It is scandalous beyond belief and it has wiped out the fishing industry. Basically, in the dying seconds I have to talk on these amendments - there is so much more on which we should have had ample opportunity to speak - I will go back to the people of Castletownbere, Schull, Glandore, Union Hall and Kinsale in west Cork and tell them this is a raw and shocking bad deal, and the Minister is at the helm. I plead with him today to pull back from the edge and stand and fight for the fisherman of this country.

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