Seanad debates
Thursday, 21 November 2002
Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2002: Second Stage.
Our monitoring onshore is equally inefficient. A catch of cod can be reported as whatever species is acceptable at any given time and there is no one to inspect it or dispute the claim. This is packed on a lorry and leaves the country without any realistic check. This will have to stop and realistic measures must be introduced and applied to ensure our stocks are not being plundered and that we are not party to such flouting of regulations. The only way to fully monitor catches is to ban all foreign landings at weekends. The Department claims it cannot afford to pay officers to work weekends to carry out the necessary inspections. In that case, it may be necessary to ban landings outside of normal office hours as well, but that may be extreme. I understand this is happening in Scotland and we already have a situation where herrings cannot be landed at weekends. Therefore, what I am proposing is only a logical extension of this.
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