Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It was not possible to do anything until I received the final judgement, which was only received just over a month ago. As I said, and I cannot be any clearer, myself and the Government have a very strong commitment to work to protect fishing inside the six nautical miles for smaller vessels and for the inshore sector and to protect the sustainability of it.

Nothing could be done until we received the final judgement, which we are now fully assessing. It is going to be important in respect of the steps that we take that we are very deliberate and considered, to ensure that all of the required procedures are followed because, as we can see from what happened on the previous occasion, and indeed from so many other instances, all that needs to be found and challenged is one small item in order for the whole procedure to be stopped.

There is now a procedure to re-establish this policy that will have to be gone through. I will work with my team to work to step that out but there is no quick way of making an immediate decision or simply, with the stroke of a pen, to just do something. A comprehensive procedure must be gone through legally to achieve this and that is very much evidenced by the experience over the past three to four years, where the previous decision was overturned by a court challenge.

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