Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I am conscious of the economic impact on our coastal communities. In successive programmes for Government, we set out a desire to continue to support coastal communities. The Deputy is right; it is through allowing fishers to catch and process fish that we support those communities. I will have to be guided by the scientific advice, as other Ministers have been previously. I know the sector does not want handouts or supports. We will have to look at a framework by means of which we can support the communities and sectors to work through what is without doubt the most difficult challenge it will have faced in its existence, and certainly since the introduction of the Common Fisheries Policy and our accession to the European Union. I am particularly conscious that the pelagic sector is one which the Irish fleet and Irish entrepreneurs and fishermen have really developed over the years. It is a credit to them, their ingenuity and hard work when you look at what Killybegs has become. I do not need to tell the Deputy that, particularly as he was born and raised in that region and has seen how it has been transformed. It has allowed people to work there and for a younger population to regenerate and not be scourged by the emigration that bedevilled the communities around Killybegs back in the fifties and sixties.

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