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

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

recognises that: - the Irish inshore fleet comprises approximately 91 per cent of all our fishing vessels, and supports between 2,500 and 3,000 full-time jobs in rural and coastal communities;

- the National Inshore Fishermen's Association, the representative body for the small inshore fishermen in Ireland, have been highlighting their serious concerns regarding the collapse in the processed shrimp market, which is impacting many inshore fishermen;

- in light of the duel dramatic fall in market prices together with rising costs, the inshore fleet, by far the largest sector of the national fleet, is now under extremely severe pressure;

- the collapse in this market is not merely confined to the shrimp market, given that buyers of shrimp for "cooking" generally also purchase velvet crab, another staple of the inshore fleet;

- the generally strong prices available within the shrimp market in the run-up to Christmas are no longer available, which adds a significant financial strain upon the inshore fishermen;

- all inshore fishermen operate within boats that are under 39.3 feet in length, with many using punts of only 16 to 18 feet long, to provide a livelihood for their families, during rough weather, in tough and dangerous conditions;

- already this winter inshore fishermen have had to deal with poorer than usual weather conditions, incorporating strong gales and storms since mid-October, resulting in shorter workable windows of weather in which to operate;

- the detrimental foundation of the fishermen's current predicament was laid early in 2022 when restrictions on the already meagre 400-tonne allowance for hook and line mackerel made the fishery uneconomical; and

- due to the restricted inshore mackerel quota, buyers made the decision to resort to Spain to provide quality line-caught fish for their discerning customers; further recognises that: - all fishers, including the inshore fishermen, have been hit extremely hard by record high fuel cost increases, while bait prices have also "soared" (mainly due to almost all bait now being imported) as larger whitefish vessels have taken advantage of tie-up schemes;

- as a result of the various challenges facing the inshore sector, and the lack of Government support, crewmen are now leaving the sector, with replacement labour proving difficult, if not impossible, to procure;

- unfortunately, small fishermen are facing annihilation, a problem exacerbated by the current Government which has decided the simplest solution to deal with the loss of the Irish fishing quota, due to the Brexit European Union (EU)/United Kingdom Trade and Cooperation Agreement, is to decommission the whitefish fleet;

- Irish boat owners are forced to sit in the harbour and watch as their EU neighbours from France and Spain land fish from Irish waters in Irish harbours, while benefiting from a fuel subsidy implemented by their governments on the back of a derogation given by the European Commission;

- the larger whitefish vessels have already received four tranches of financial support, yet the Government have provided no financial support whatsoever to the inshore fishermen who are understandably feeling completely neglected at this point in time;

- the European Commission has recently adopted the €285.4 million European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) 2021-2027 seafood development programme, which includes a €134 million EU contribution and a Government of Ireland contribution of €116 million, and has the objective of providing resources to mitigate the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine, through socio-economic development and support for coastal communities;

- the fisheries data for 2021-2022, published in the first of what is expected to be an annual fisheries report produced by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), documents the threat posed by rising fuel and energy prices on the entire Irish fleet;

- the aforementioned BIM report points out that in 2020, average fuel costs for fishers per litre were €0.42 ($0.41), whereas in mid-2022 the average stood at €0.90 ($0.88), representing a 114 per cent increase, and representing 28 per cent of the average fleet's potential operating costs;

- the BIM report also found, if fuel prices and other operating costs such as insurance, repair, and maintenance remain level or continue to increase further, there is a "considerable risk" that many fishing fleets will begin to operate at a loss, forcing more and more vessels to tie up; and

- the increase in operational costs is particularly challenging for vessels that have crew shares, as there are reduced wages for the crew once fuel and other operational costs are removed from the boats' income; and

calls on the Government to:

- accept that the Irish inshore fleet is heavily impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and the war in Ukraine, and that direct State financial assistance of at least €12 million is now long overdue to mitigate the socio-economic impact of the crisis and support the vitality of coastal communities;

- immediately allocate funds from the available EMFAF, to provide direct financial support to the Irish inshore fleet, which makes up 91 per cent of Ireland's fishing fleet;

- allocate this funding to all impacted inshore boats through the BIM Grants Portal system, as it would allow for an almost instant allocation system to be rolled out, which would provide short-term immediate relief; and

- urgently act to grant this unique and diverse inshore fishery fleet a greater quota allocation with diversification to other species, to facilitate and encourage young people to opt into fishing as a career, rather than coastal rural areas becoming desolate due to ongoing emigration.

I thank Brian Ó Domhnaill and Mairéad McGrath in our office for putting together this motion. I am delighted to be part of the Rural Independent Group, which puts forward this motion today on behalf of every inshore fisherman, in west Cork and throughout the country. The motion is confined to inshore fishermen who, but for the Rural Independent Group, would never get a mention here in the Dáil.

The Irish inshore fleet comprises approximately 91% of all fishing vessels and supports between 2,500 and 3,000 jobs in rural coastal communities. Similar to those in the bigger fleet, the livelihoods of these inshore fishermen are mainly unaided and, sadly, more and more inshore fishermen are leaving the sea, their place of employment. Storm after storm strikes our shoreline year after year but, sadly, even though many fishermen could prove massive damage or losses, a refusal here in the Dáil meant they got no aid to replace lost gear, in spite of the many calls I made.

Many of the inshore fishermen I know in west Cork fish for shrimp. Their income has been severely affected by the collapse of the processed shrimp and velvet crab market, which impacts many inshore fishermen. Today, we back the call for a direct financial package of €12 million from the State. The Minister met the National Inshore Fishermen's Association before Christmas. Its members laid bare the crisis and aid is now required. The motion calls on that to be agreed. If the Government is only feeding fib stories to the inshore sector, the Minister should be honest enough to vote against the motion. Without €12 million in compensation, many of these decent people will go out of business. If this emergency fund is not announced today, I will tell every inshore fisherman and woman that they have been conned by the Government. This would not set a precedent. The Minister rightly aided the pig sector to the tune of millions last year to rescue their business, which was in a similar crisis.

We also need to look at a fuel subsidy for inshore fishermen. They must spend large amounts on fuel for their inshore boats, especially as it is petrol that they use. There was a European fund to which other countries applied for their fishermen, but the Minister refused to apply it to Ireland. I presume the reason is that he would not get permission from the Green Party to help fishermen. It is intolerable that funds allocated by the EU Commission have not been apportioned to our inshore fleet, while other EU countries draw from these funds in the form of fuel subsidies for their respective inshore fleets. I will listen with great interest to what the Minister has planned to aid these hard-working men and women.

While the €12 million will not be the greatest solution, it will help fishermen in some way to adjust and to prepare themselves, going forward. It is completely unacceptable for the Minister with responsibility for the marine and the Government to ignore the genuine astronomical pressures on fishermen. The lack of any financial support for this unique sector could be called cruel, in particular as up to 3,000 jobs are now in jeopardy in rural, coastal communities.

Our motion today also instructs the Government to urgently grant the inshore fishery fleet a greater quota allocation, with diversification to other species. This quota need not come from quotas to the larger Irish fleet, it can come from the quotas given to other countries around the world of Irish fish out of Irish waters.

I very often blame the Green Party for much of the difficulty rural Ireland finds itself in, but when it comes to fisheries it is Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that have destroyed the fishing industry in this country, as year after year, decade after decade, they turned a blind eye to every quota we could obtain and, sadly, handed away the quotas we had in our own waters. It is wrong that in this Dáil I hear Deputies either favour the inshore sector, the smaller man, or the larger fishing fleet, the so-called bigger guy. We should unite and fight as one, as it suits the Government to have them fight apart, like the old British way of divide and conquer.

In negotiations with the now Tánaiste and now Taoiseach, Deputies Micheál Martin and Leo Varadkar, on government formation in 2020, I had two red lines if I was to support the government. One, is that there would be no downgrading of Bantry hospital. We all see why I did not get that granted. The other was a dedicated Minister for fisheries, which was denied to me, and the country. Not even a junior or super junior Minister was offered. Even the Taoiseach at the time, Deputy Micheál Martin, asked where I thought we would find the ministries, and which one would they drop if they acceded to my request. Hey presto, when it suited to keep the nod-and-wink politics going, he parachuted two super juniors to keep the boys and girls happy. Of course, neither of them is fisheries. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, must think I am here to have a go at him personally, but I am not. I did not ask who was to be the Minister for fisheries, just to have a stand-alone Minister for fisheries solely responsible for the inshore fishing and larger fleet. This request was refused point-blank, and we now see the consequences of the actions of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, which have proven to be totally against the fishing sector down through the years. We have a massive, rich resource surrounding our country, and Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have handed it bit by bit to the foreign fleets.

The Minister has funded improvements to piers, which must be welcomed, but does he realise what the fishermen have said to me recently on the issue? They say it is no longer for fishermen, because they are finished. They say the improvements will be for everybody else but them.

While I mention funds, what about the funds required for Union Hall Pier? This is vital. Both the Minister and the then Taoiseach, Deputy Micheál Martin, raised the hopes of locals in Union Hall and Glandore when they were on a damage-limitation visit to west Cork after the shocking Brexit deal, but they forgot to bring the chequebook, leaving locals angered and dismayed because it meant that much-needed works at Union Hall Pier remain undone.

For those fishermen in west Cork who are fighting on, we need the Baltimore breakwater works to commence. I spoke to Independent councillor, Karen Coakley, yesterday, who told me that this can be done and that the special area of conservation, SAC, can be moved in such cases, which she is fighting to have done through Cork County Council. I urge the Minister to sit up and take note of this, as this work is urgently required for the fishermen of Baltimore.

I congratulate the people of Courtmacsherry and beyond, who have kindly donated a top-of-the-range lifeboat. I had the pleasure of being with all the locals at the pier on Sunday welcoming this state-of-the-art boat, which will help save lives at sea in the years to come. I say a big thank you to all concerned, and to the volunteers on the lifeboat who put their lives at risk to help others. When every inshore fisherman or woman goes to sea, they put their lives at risk to bring food to our table and to feed their families. They must go out in all weathers. Then this work stopped. These inshore men have trained all their lives to be masters of the sea but did not train for any other profession. In the rural places I represent: Crookhaven, Goleen, Schull, Ballydehob, Bantry, Glengariff, Adrigole, Castletownbere, Union Hall and Baltimore, and further east all the way to Kinsale - I could go on - the livelihoods of these people is at risk. They will need time to adjust. I hope the Minister recognises that and will give the €12 million in aid that is being sought today.

I was brought up to respect fishermen by my mother who gave us a serious warning to do so, even though she did not have a background in fishing. This is why I always call for their very survival. I now call for a change of mind in the rank and file of the Department towards fishermen. Likewise, we must have a change in the mind-set of the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA, towards Irish fishermen. If this does not change, the Government will wipe out both sectors.

Prior to Christmas I was contacted by a fishing vessel off Castletownbere, which was being continuously surrounded by a foreign vessel. There was a near-ramming incident last year and in previous years a person's life was lost because of the carry-on. I brought the issue to the attention of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine to find out where the responsibility lies. The SFPA does not seem to want to respond. The Department does not want to respond. The Taoiseach does not want to respond. It is an astonishing situation to think that Irish fishing vessels, which can prove by video that they are being circled and surrounded by foreign vessels off our waters, have no protection whatsoever. If there is an infringement by an Irish vessel, there would be no problem responding. The vessel would be surrounded and brought ashore to Irish waters to face prosecution, but when it comes to saving lives, there is nobody out there to help them. This will have to be clarified, as to who has rights and how Irish fishermen can be protected when they go to fish in waters, which is their true entitlement.

However, I hope he backs the motion on the basis that €12 million will be allocated to the inshore sector and a fuel subsidy will be given to the sector immediately. If the Minister gets up to support this motion and does not give either of the requests by the inshore fishermen, he is only codding them. He will not fool us and he certainly will not fool the public. I will be listening with great intent to his speech to see what he has in store for inshore fishermen.

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