Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As a farmer, can the Minister imagine a day sitting and watching all his neighbours out working his land and getting paid by a subsidy given to them by the Government? Can he imagine sitting at home, looking out the windows and seeing people farm his land and getting subsidies for it from the Government? This is exactly what is happening to the smaller boat owners sitting in the harbour on Irish waters and looking at France and Spain fishing there, while benefitting from a subsidy. The Minister's Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Government sold them out. Many people from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who are absolutely astonished and dismayed, come to me on a weekly basis and want to know what the parties they have followed all their lives are doing. They see something such as this and say, "oh my God". They ask whether Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Deputies are really representing the parties they are supposed to represent, because they are not representing the people who have followed them.

The market for shrimp and inshore fisheries has collapsed. About 1,700 of these fishermen and fisherwomen are currently in financial trouble. They are not able to claim VAT back on the petrol that they are using, even though it is available to the bigger trawlers. I ask for €12 million from the €285.4 million that is available from Europe's fund for Ireland to deal with the cost-of-living increases due to the war in Ukraine be given to the shore, shrimp and velvet crab fishermen and fisherwomen. This group is represented by the velvet crab organisation. It can be so easily done on the portal of An Bord Iascaigh Mara, BIM, because BIM has all their details. These fishermen and fisherwomen need the industry to survive. In 2020, their fuel cost was 42 cent per litre, of which our Government took 50% in tax. In 2022, they were paying 90 cent per litre, of which the Government took 50% in tax. The Government took an additional 45.5 cent in tax which is more than double of what they were paying in the previous year. It needs to give back to these people what it has taken off them in tax alone. This is the smaller side of the fishing industry which accounts for approximately 1,700 small vessels which are dealing with a loss of fish quota which the Minister's Government gave away. The Government gave away our fishing rights and the Minister is responsible for this.

We heard about unfair competition from larger foreign commercial vessels from my colleague, Deputy Collins, who has been fighting for fisheries every day since he came in here. The Rural Independent Group has been fighting for it as well, with regard to the cost of living in particular - especially in fuel costs of which the Government takes 50% in tax - and the war in Ukraine and weather conditions which have been especially bad this year.

I am from a farming, rather than a fishing, background, but it is the same sequence of events. Last night we stood here to discuss the same situation in forestry. Now we have forestry sold out, farming sold out and the fisheries sold out by a Government led by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, with the Greens. The people, from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, who put their trust in the Government to protect them in rural Ireland are dismayed to find their representatives from counties such as Limerick are not using their voices to protect the next generation of families coming through.

All the Minister's Department and Government are doing is taxing them out of existence, giving away funding to larger groups and forgetting about the real people of Ireland, who are the squeezed middle working class. The Government is going for the big conglomerates. Why can it not protect the people who put it here? I call on Deputies from both Limerick city and county to stand up and represent the parties and rural Ireland, which put them here. Give us our voice back at a Cabinet where all these decisions are being made.

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