Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister mentioned in his opening speech the €305.5 million in support schemes. It is a long time since I worked in a fish plant. We used to process fish in this country that were caught in this country.

We have the possibility here of having a more than €1 billion sustainable industry in this country. We are going the wrong way when I hear previous speakers talking about quotas and the like. These are our waters and this is our fishing industry. Talking to fishermen in Ballycotton, Cobh, Youghal and Goleen, they are struggling. There is a possibility of making this so sustainable. I have spoken to fishermen who say seashells and oyster shells can be crushed and mixed with chicken feed to produce extra calcium. There is all this aquaculture we are talking about. I get very aggrieved when I see the map from Ireland to Greenland and so much richness in that area. We cannot even catch tuna. If I go into a shop or the fishmongers in my town of Midleton and ask where the tuna is, I will be told, "We do not fish for tuna". We have one of the richest seas on the planet. Can we please move away from this talk of giving quotas to X, Y and Z? It is our water. It is our industry. We should support our costal communities, making the best of sustainable resources, making Ireland one of the best countries in the planet in which to catch and produce fish, package it without exporting it from elsewhere, and create a massive multibillion euro industry in this country. We have to stop going backwards and move forward.

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