Results 1-20 of 9,286 for speaker:Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

Gnó na Dála - Business of Dáil (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: It is not agreed. This in unprecedented. The Government is moving a motion of confidence, when there has been no formal submission of the motion of no confidence. We have not seen the text of the motion of no confidence, so it is unprecedented to make this move. I also add that at the Business Committee meeting on Thursday, I raised the unprecedented crisis in fisheries and seafood...

Gnó na Dála - Business of Dáil (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: However, time has been made available now. It has all of a sudden been created to do something that is unprecedented. There was no time for the crisis in fisheries and seafood this week, but there is time for an unprecedented move by the Government-----

Gnó na Dála - Business of Dáil (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: -----to move a confidence motion, when there has not been a formal receipt of a no confidence motion. It is usually done to negate the no confidence motion. This is a stunt. It is cynical-----

Gnó na Dála - Business of Dáil (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: -----and we will absolutely oppose it.

Gnó na Dála - Business of Dáil (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: We had a debate, so that did not work.

Reform of the Defective Concrete Redress Scheme: Motion [Private Members] (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I commend my colleague Deputy Charles Ward on putting together this motion. It speaks volumes that every single member of the Opposition accepted the invitation to co-sign the motion because it reflects the reality on the ground in our counties. My colleagues from other counties will speak soon. As someone from Donegal, I can say with absolute authority that this motion reflects the lived...

Reform of the Defective Concrete Redress Scheme: Motion [Private Members] (15 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I apologise, can we get a copy of the speech?

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Fishing Industry (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: 88. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will report on his plan to save the fishing and seafood industry from the impact of the proposed devastating cuts to the mackerel, blue whiting and boarfish quotas; and the financial aid that will be provided to the affected businesses and workers. [54988/25]

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Fishing Industry (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: The Minister of State and I had an extensive engagement at the fisheries committee earlier today. These proposals are devastating. There is a 70% cut to the recommended mackerel TAC, 41% for blue whiting and 22% for boarfish while a zero TAC is recommended for cod, haddock and whiting. I would like to engage with the Minister of State on the Government's plan.

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Fishing Industry (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: As he was coming before the committee, the Minister of State will not have had a chance to hear the contributions from the fish producer organisations and the representative of the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association. In all of my time, I have never seen it worse. I have been in politics for 23.5 years, representing the fishing communities around me. In all those years, I have...

Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions: Fishing Industry (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: This has to be the moment where everything changes. This has to be a radical reset of the operation of the Common Fisheries Policy. The policy talks about climate change, sustainability and those communities closest to fisheries benefiting from them. We need to expose how all of that amounts to nothing. This is apparently four times worse than what happened to us after Brexit. Brexit was...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: This issue of overfishing has continued for a number of years. It is not new. The IFPO's submission refers to a five-year process. If one puts in all of the different cutbacks, we are facing losses of €200 million next year. If no firm action is taken, conservative estimates predict that 2,000 jobs will be lost and there will be devastation in coastal and fishing communities. I...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: They are recklessly overfishing.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: I am conscious we do not have a large number of members here yet, so I will ask one final question, if I may. There has been a failure to take any action in the last five years. Every single year that the fish producers have come before this committee to discuss the sustainability impact assessment, the issue of mackerel overfishing has been flagged. It has certainly been flagged for the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: An eight-point plan has been brought forward. I commend the Seafood Ireland Alliance, our fishing organisations and the producer organisations on working together as one voice. They have been doing that for a number of years in uniting together and speaking directly to the European Commission. There is an eight-point plan. In his submission Mr. Lynch said that we are going to have to see...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: It absolutely cannot be business as usual. As the Minister of State will know, Sinn Féin has welcomed the appointment of a dedicated Minister of State with responsibility for fisheries who is entirely focused on this sector. We have disastrous recommendations on mackerel, blue whiting and boarfish. Our mackerel industry is crucial. We have just heard evidence from the processor...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: There is a lot of talk about countries here but my issue is that major corporations are involved in industrial scale fishing and reckless practices that ignore science and that may well destroy a precious, shared resource that spawns off the Irish coast and works its way up to the north Atlantic. This is clearly reckless and clearly in defiance of the science, and there are no repercussions....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: Over the past five years, more than 1 million tonnes of mackerel have been caught above the level set in scientific advice and in defiance of scientific advice. It is astonishing that this has been allowed to happen. I have met with fishing interests over recent years and they have provided, to the best of their ability with the limited resources they have, research that demonstrates that...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs: Quotas, Common Fisheries Policy and Sustainability Impact Assessment: Discussion (14 Oct 2025)

Pádraig Mac Lochlainn: For anybody listening in, it would appear that Iceland controls its fishing fleet, the government of the Faroe Islands controls its fishing fleet and countries like these have nationalised fishing fleets. This is private enterprise. All the EU has done is tut-tut for the past three or four years about the behaviour. We hear about countries but these are corporations based in the EU that...