Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Last year, the Minister announced a "record budget", as he described it, for the fisheries and seafood sector. The total of that budget was €337.45 million, which he stated was a 62% increase on the previous budget. Those of us who were listening to fishing communities and fish producers around the coast believed that the figures were doctored, the money was coming from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve fund, and the Minister was announcing investment in piers and harbours as though it were Government expenditure. This is redundancy money that is being given to our fishing communities because the EU has taken away so much of our quota and we have had to decommission even more of our vessels. We are giving away more of the fish in our waters and we are losing our industry. The Minister claimed that redundancy money as Government expenditure and announced a "record budget".

I checked and double-checked this year’s budget because I thought it could not be right. I looked at it again today. It amounts to a drop of almost 50% on what the Minister announced last year. It is €176.9 million. What was announced in the budget yesterday was shocking. This industry around our coast is struggling to survive. In the past 12 months, there has been a 15% reduction in production in the fishing industry, the fleet has reduced by 30%, Ireland’s fishing quota in our own waters has been reduced by in the region of 20% and approximately 1,000 people at sea and ashore have lost their jobs. The industry is struggling. I do not want to use the term “on its knees”, as I know the fishers and fish producers around the coast and they are hard-working and proud people who are trying to save their industry, but they need the Government to meet them halfway.

The Minister knows that he claimed a record budget last year and a 62% increase, but that was not true. The Government was claiming European money. This year, it will have to stand over that claim in light of the reduction of 50%. This is a disastrous budget for our fishing community and I do not know how the Government can stand over it.

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