Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I hope this motion will generate cross-party support across this House. We know the sector needs protection and it certainly needs its unanswered calls answered, however late in the day it may be. I commend my colleague, Deputy Collins, for all his work and the passion and leadership he has shown with regard to having fishermen's and fisherwomen's issues addressed in this House. It is high time the Minister took notice. I hope we can get support across the House.

As my colleague has noted, the Irish inshore fleet comprises of approximately 91% of our fishing vessels and supports between 2,500 and 3,000 full-time jobs in rural and coastal communities. One has to wonder why it is that organisations such as the National Inshore Fishermen's Association, NIFA, have to make their argument repeatedly and loudly to Government and why it is there are such delays in responding from the Government's side. Is Government of the belief and view that inshore fishermen can simply be discarded, ignored or perhaps spoken down to in a way which they would not dream of doing to representatives, for example, of the tech industry?

What really infuriates me about debates of this kind is what seems to be an acceptance that all of our natural resources are simply up for grabs or that they can be left to wither on the vine. The only natural resource about which the Government appears to give a damn is wind and we all know why that is; the big subsidies and the big boys in the corporations. That is all the Government cares about. If it is not wind, the Government does not want to know. I ask the Minister to look at the sell-out of our sugarbeet sector. It was once thriving and is now forgotten. Look at our natural oil and gas fields which have bans placed on their exploration. Look at our peat sector. In a reply to my parliamentary question, I was told 19,000 tonnes of peat and peat-related products are being exported from the country and have been exported to Japan in the past decade and yet the Government is punishing Irish people and banning them from using their own resources.

There is a pattern here. All of the things we have on our doorstep and the resources we have in our seas are being divvied up and sold off with no regard to or respect for how it will impact on vulnerable coastal communities or, indeed, on rural communities. Today we are talking about inshore fisheries but tomorrow some other area of rural life will be attacked and some other indigenous sector of value will be undermined or sold out. I find it incredible. The Minister's predecessors in Fianna Fáil really must be turning in their graves. We have seen the sell-out of fisheries and now the sell-out of forestry. It is shameful. The Government has sold out and chipped away at our sovereignty. It has absolutely betrayed the Irish people and is nothing other than a shower of traitors. I will make no apologies for that statement.

Where is the advantage to the Irish people and fishing communities in allowing such vital resources and activities to deteriorate to the point of collapse or the sell-out of precious resources? It is so disheartening to look back and survey the wreckage that has been delivered upon rural Ireland and coastal communities by the financial policies of a tiny, insignificant, ideological and bizarre party which is controlling the Government right, left and centre. That party is clearly the tail wagging the dog. Today, it is the turn of the fishermen and fisherwomen to suffer. Tomorrow, it will be somebody else. Make no mistake about it, the Googles or Intels of this world will not suffer. They get the red-carpet treatment. The ordinary men and women of rural Ireland, the backbone of the rural economy, are the ones who will take the brunt for the Minister's policy, lack of leadership and shameful betrayal. They will bear that brunt.

However, the time is coming when the people of rural Ireland and coastal communities will say they have enough. I believe that time is now. We are sick and tired of the policies of ruin and destruction. There is simply no good reason for the Government not to support this motion or for any other party or group in this House not to support this motion. We must send a signal to the fishermen and fisherwomen of Ireland that we stand with them in solidarity, support them and will help them. If it were not for great leaders such as Fr. John Joe Duffy in Donegal, we would be in bigger trouble. At least those people have that man.

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