Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Muireann Kavanagh is a 14-year-old girl. She lives on Arranmore Island off the coast of Donegal. Her father, grandfather and great grandfather were all fishermen. Muireann also fishes. She catches pollock with a hook and line, the method of fishing with the lowest impact. She wants a future on the island but she has been banned from fishing for pollock. While Muireann is told by the Government that what she was doing is now illegal, she watches from her bedroom window and sees what look like small cities. These are the foreign super-trawlers off the coast of her island hoovering up thousands of tonnes of fish, including pollock, and the Government tells her that for them it is perfectly legal.

By anyone's book, this is not fair. This is a young girl who just wants to fish. How does the Tánaiste stand over this? A 14-year-old island girl is banned from fishing with a hook and line while foreign super-trawlers hoover up the same fish as by-product off her island.

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