Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I rise again to ask the Leader if we could have an urgent debate on the future of the fishing industry vis-À-vis the restructuring plan announced by the Minister for Agriculture and Food yesterday. I accept that under the Cawley report, which was the plan for fishing going forward, the fishing industry has, by and large, agreed to the decommissioning of its vessels. However, in this instance, 75 trawlers will be removed from our fishing fleet, which will have a considerable impact on communities like Castletownbere, Union Hall, Rossaveal, Killybegs or Dingle. We should look beyond that and see what can be done by way of regeneration for the communities in those areas because the trawler owners would get reasonably substantial and proper compensation for taking their boats permanently out of the fishing fleet. We accept that fishing stocks are dwindling and that this is, in one sense, a double-edged sword. We need to do this even though it is sad when one sees the vessels.

My concern is that most of these vessels have five or six crew members. What will be the fate of these people? Some of them have families, mortgages and commitments and are active in the community and involved in football or other sports and social activities. If 500 or 600 jobs around the coastline are lost, we must see what can be done to ensure that there is a sustainable initiative or package into the future, which should be supported by Europe for coastal communities. In the short term, one can look at the salient features of this package but there are knock-on effects about which I am deeply concerned. The future of coastal communities, particularly the fishermen who have sailed the seas in these trawlers, should be looked at and I ask the Leader to arrange an urgent debate and invite the Minister to the House to see what can be done to have a soft landing, if I can use that term, for the people concerned.