Niall Ó Brolcháin (Green Party)

I very much welcome the Minister of State. I hear his passion for the subject and I commend him on that. Many of the issues I wish to raise have been raised. The Minister of State has been congratulated on his work. Conservation is a key issue for the Green Party and the Minister of State mentioned that in his speech. We need to ensure sustainability of stocks.

I put on the record before that according to EUROSTAT figures, some €200 billion worth of fish were caught in Irish waters from 1974 to 2007. This is a huge sum. Ireland provides approximately half the high value fish stocks in EU waters. The Minister of State is correct, therefore, to say that the potential for the Irish fishing industry is huge. Other countries fish in our waters as well and we need to keep nibbling away at this. In the early days, when we negotiated the CFP, we did not really have a fishing industry to cope with the possibilities that existed.

The Minister of State is correct that fishing comprises a very important industry for Ireland. It is an industry that every Government can and should develop in parallel with farming. I hope we can ensure the industry is very much a sustainable one.

I commend the work of the research vessels that operate from the port in Galway and the various Naval Service ships that help protect our waters from illegal fishing which presents a great difficulty, particularly in ensuring the sustainability of stocks.