Seanad debates

Thursday, 21 November 2002

Fisheries (Amendment) Bill, 2002: Second Stage.

 

The Spanish have successfully fished out Mauritania and Morocco. They will be kicked out of these waters when the agreements terminate, and rightly so. I would like to point out one aspect to the Minister of State. We helped to fund and build one of these super trawlers, Mr. McHugh's boat, the Atlantic Dawn, which is an ecological disaster. It hoovers up fish indiscriminately off the bed of the ocean, much of which is used as fish meal and so on. Why did we do this? When the boat was not allowed fish in European waters it fished off the coast of Africa, putting the tribal coastal fishermen out of business. When these unfortunate villagers come here we get snotty with them and call them economic migrants. We helped to make them economic migrants.

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