David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome back Ms Blake; it is great to see her back. On behalf of the Sinn Féin Party, I offer my condolences to Senator Coghlan on the passing of his mother. I also wish Senator Jimmy Harte a speedy recovery and we in Sinn Féin send our best wishes to his party colleagues. We are all friends of Jimmy and we want to see him back on his feet as quickly as possible. He is in all our thoughts and prayers at the moment.

I wish to raise a disturbing issue with the Leader. At the moment, 15 boats are tied up in Kilmore Quay in County Wexford. The vessels will not be allowed back to sea unless they sign an affidavit which they have not yet seen. This has apparently come from the Department.

A total of 100 self-employed fishermen are affected. They are now out of work coming up to Christmas. As everybody knows, self-employed people find it very difficult to get social welfare, so they will be in a very vulnerable situation. Staff who work in processing plants will also be affected.

Our party's spokesman on this area met with the owners of the boats this morning. We were given some very important information about the quotas. At the heart of this is the fact that the quotas are insufficient for fishermen to make a viable and sustainable living. The megs - monkfish and megrim - quota is the bone of contention. Irish fishermen in Area 7 off the south east coast have achieved 92% of their quota. That is very difficult to achieve given that these tonnages are set on a monthly basis and if there is any bad weather, the quota is lost for that month. To reach 92% is a high achievement. French fishermen have only used 33% of their quota. There is a clear and simple demand from Irish fishermen that the Irish Government negotiate with the French. If the French are not using their quotas, as appears to be the case, those quotas should be made available to Irish fishermen. Clearly, it is difficult for many fishing vessels and fishermen to make a living at present due to the restrictive quotas, and that situation is made even worse when foreign trawlers are not using up their quotas.

I appeal to the Leader to talk to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine about this issue and to try to secure his intervention to resolve it and get those fishing vessels back to sea as soon as possible.