Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important matter. I thank Deputy Collins and his colleagues for raising this and I fully support it. They have highlighted the crisis the industry is in and the urgent need. They have identified a figure which is very different in the scheme of money given out by the Government often unaccounted for and without transparency and accountability coming back. The Minister's comments to the effect that it is the first time a group has brought a Private Members' Bill is not helpful because small groups can only bring Private Members' Bills on an irregular, let us say, very intermittent basis. If I use myself as an example, I have brought Bills or motions on seaweed and on a policy for the islands. Nothing has happened and they are all interlinked, of course. We have had one on wool which is interlinked again with local industry and the viability of costal communities and also on seaweed, fishing and a policy for the islands. None of them has materialised, not one, and we are waiting.

I welcome the positives first before I go on to analyse where I see the difficulties with the Government. I welcome the announcement that there is a National Inshore Fishermen's Association which is recognised as a producer organisation. The value of that will depend on its total independence from the Department and its total independence in relation to resourcing. I hope that producer organisation does not have the distinction of standing over the death of fishing in our costal areas. I hope that is not the outcome. The motion is particularly well laid out. It sets out the matter in detail and I thank Deputy Collins for that. I want to focus on the very good policy by the Government back in 2018 to ban trawlers over 18 m from the inshore; a wonderful policy. It has already been referred to by Deputy Cairns but the update has not been given at all. Very quickly, the Government brought in a very good policy. A transition period was given for the bigger trawlers regarding sprat which were given a two or three-year window to get out of the inshore waters and unfortunately a case is taken to the High Court by a number of big boat owners. They win on a technicality being that the communication process was not as it should be. Fast forward to this year, the Court of Appeal's judgment held completely with the Government. I have the Court of Appeal judgment with me and I have taken the trouble to read it in detail. On 19 July 2022, the judgment held with the Government's policy utterly and completely. Can the Minister tell me today what has happened since 18 July? The only little obstacle at the bottom of that judgment was that the court asked for submissions in relation to a Northern Ireland aspect and vehicles. Otherwise, it was a complete victory for the Government. Its policy was upheld. More particularly, the Court of Appeal judgment stated that the policy directive to exclude the big trawlers from taking sprat, on the basis that it is simply not viable, was a measure of the conservation for fish stocks within the relevant regulation. The failure to notify - and that relates to the consultation process - had no effect on the validity. It was a win-win for the Government. The judgment goes on to say that the policy was not discriminatory. It was intra vires; in other words, the Government had the power to do what it did. It was not irrational. It was rational. It was legally adequate and a reasonable leader construing the consultation paper would not have concluded that the applicants who took the case enjoyed any right to a second consultation. Therefore, there is no need for a second consultation, the Government's policy has been upheld and simply seven months later we have no clarification from the Government on so important a matter which is the unsustainable removal of sprat from our inshore waters that is making it impossible for smaller fishermen to continue. If we look at the policy and what was behind it, there was a six-fold justification for it of which I will read but which included to provide wider ecosystem benefits including for nursing areas and juvenile stocks. It goes on to outline all of them stating that excluding vessels over 18 m from trawling inside the 6 nautical mile zone would present a significant economic opportunity to smaller inshore vessels. The increase in availability of sprat, and possibly of herring, to smaller vessels would represent a significant diversification opportunity for these smaller vessels. There were potential knock-on benefits for other economic sectors if the restrictions were introduced which is what the Government was doing back in December 2018. Finally, the restrictions ultimately reflected that the policy directive would go some way to addressing the issue of gear conflict and the loss of the static fishing gear used by smaller vessels as a consequence of net trawling by larger boats.

The background and the evidence given, which was not challenged by the Government, was that the number of vessels in the 12 m to 18 m fleet in Ireland is very low and continues to decline reflecting the very difficult environment in which these small boats operate, which is the whole substance of this motion before us. There is a compelling case for excluding trawling activity by large vessels in coastal waters inside the 6 nautical miles. There are sufficient opportunities for these vessels outside of the 6 nautical miles.

On and on it goes and it talks about the importance of small fishermen earning a living that is sustainable in small vessels in a sustainable way. That is what this motion is about. What really worries me is the kind of quick retort and I can see why the Minister might retort to some of the language used but that is neither here nor there. The duty is on the Government to come forward to tell us what it is doing in policy and in an action plan so that we have sustainable coastal communities based upon seaweed, which is the most fantastic product that we are ignoring, until we gave it to the big boys, or to be fair, to the big girls.

Wool is a completely wonderful commodity. What did we do? It was said that somebody should set up a wool council. We set a report up with fantastic recommendations, which highlights the diversity of how wool can be used and then we ignore it.

What do we do then with small vessels? We make it completely impossible for them. When we bring in a policy directive, we let it trundle on long for four years through the courts without making a damning or strong case to the court asking it to please hear this case quickly. When the court did hear it in July, it gave the Government a win. The Government is making the win into a loss because it is still allowing the big trawlers into the 6-mile area to fish unsustainably for sprat, which will feed other unsustainable fish farming activities. I have no hesitation in supporting this motion here today. I thank the Rural Independent Group again for bringing it forward.

The comments that we should bring these motions in our Private Members' time is simply not helpful. The duty is on the Government to tell us what the policy is.

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