Gerald Nash (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I have read the Supreme Court judgment in great detail over the past few days. It says many things, and we can all selectively quote from it to back up our arguments. I am not necessarily accusing the Minister of doing so. The judgment ventilated the idea that laws must be made in public, by the elected Oireachtas, and promoted and mediated in public and that people need to be aware of what it is we are considering. I do not think we can say with sufficient confidence that the public at large is aware of the implications of what it is we are deciding upon here. For this reason, I support what my colleague, Senator Humphreys, said earlier, namely, that this should be delayed and that we should scrutinise in detail the provisions of the legislation and its impact on the fishing industry and coastal communities in this country.

I wish to make a further point directly related to one the Minister made in his earlier contribution when he referred to and quoted from the Supreme Court judgment, which makes very interesting reading. The Supreme Court judgment states that the voisinageagreement does not have any legal foundation. This decision was made for the right reasons, and I think everybody accepts that. However, the judgment does not instruct the Minister to make that agreement law. It is up to this Legislature to decide what becomes and does not become law in this country, and it is to the fishermen and their families who took the case that we are accountable - nobody else - and we need to be mindful of that. There is absolutely no requirement that the Minister give legislative foundation to the arrangements reflected in the voisinageagreement - and I use that term advisedly. Neither, from what I can establish, was there any degree of reciprocity. We can see here illustrated very clearly on a Marine Institute image from 2016 very limited activity around the Northern Irish coast. De facto, and from what I am told, there is no fishing - at least, very limited fishing - going on in this area by vessels registered in the Republic of Ireland.