Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. The main question I asked was not really dealt with. I have read the High Court judgment and both Court of Appeal judgments. I have seen clearly that the policy was very good. The courts had no difficulty with the policy. The difficulty related to the failure of the Government. What the Minister of State calls "the narrowest of grounds" was a legal obligation on the Government to notify England and Europe to allow them to have a say in this policy. Now, we are in the crazy situation - "crazy" does not capture it - where it is a free for all within the 6 mile limit as a result of the failure of the Department to carry out its duty. How that happened is beyond me but now that the mistake has been made, what are we doing about it? How quickly can we rectify the mistake? When will this very good policy, which is absolutely essential, be reinstated? It followed a long process of consultation. The Minister of State has outlined that there were 900 submissions. The vast majority of these submissions appealed to the Government to do something about sustainability within the 6 mile limit. Since then, we have judgments from the High Court and the Court of Appeal with the final judgment more than two weeks ago and yet the Minister of State is telling me the issue is with "the narrowest of grounds". There is no explanation as to how the Department failed to comply with its duty or, more importantly, how to rectify that mistake as quickly as possible in order to reinstate the policy. What steps are going to be taken?

In the meantime, let us look at the figures for sprat. They have significantly increased every year from 2019 onwards. Even though the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea had recommended that the catch should be no more than 2,800 tonnes, we have had catches of 14,000 tonnes, 15,000 tonnes, 14,000 tonnes, 12,000 tonnes and so on. A drastic reduction in the annual sprat catch is urgently needed for many obvious reasons. In the last two minutes, will the Minister of State give me a time span within which this is going to be rectified and tell me how the mistake was made?

See this speech in context