Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to reply to the points that have been made. In his opening remarks, Senator Norris spoke about people in the UK who have not been good neighbours. Senator Nash suggested that we should be legislating in our own national interest. He said that this is not about Brexit, our relations with the UK or anything else. I accept his premise that our primary function here is to legislate for our citizens. However, it is important to be conscious that the context to this debate generally, including the historical context, is greater than the interests of our citizens. Regardless of our views on the specifics of this legislation, all of us have witnessed the consequences of poor North-South relations. Everything we do in the context of North-South relations should be about building confidence and relationships. That context to the debate must be considered when we are considering the overall Brexit context.

It is important, in the context of good neighbourliness and outside of the issue of voisinage, to put on the record some of the issues that arise in the context of the broader fishing industry. In the period between 2011 and 2015, Ireland caught an average of 84,850 tonnes of fish in the UK 200-mile zone. That catch has been valued at €83.83 million. In the same period, the UK caught an average of 62,381 tonnes of fish in the Irish 200-mile zone. That catch has been valued at €71.25 million. We must look at the bigger picture and the broader context. As I said the last time we debated this matter, I firmly believe - Brexit aside - that it is right to reinstate something that existed long before the London fisheries convention. The convention acknowledged its existence, but the convention is not the legal basis on which it exists. The consequences of the Supreme Court decision have brought us here. We need to put on a statutory footing something which the Supreme Court implicitly said was a good thing that needed to be legislated for. One does not need to be a constitutional expert to understand the context in which this was underpinned. If one casts one's mind back to the 1960s, one will recall that the constitutional status of Articles 2 and 3 gave rise to difficulties in legislating for something which, under our Constitution, we believed we owned anyway. Circumstances have changed since then.

Senator Norris and others have suggested that under the London fisheries convention, other contracting parties will consequently be able to access our waters on the basis of what we are doing. It is worth reading the specific provisions of this very short Bill. It states:

Subject to section 9, a person on board a foreign sea-fishing boat shall not fish or attempt to fish while the boat is within the exclusive fishery limits, unless he or she—(a) is on board a sea-fishing boat owned and operated in Northern Ireland while the boat is within the area between 0 and 6 nautical miles as measured from the baseline (within the meaning of section 85).

The Bill specifically provides that this entitlement will be enjoyed by Northern Ireland boats only. This means, ipso facto, that anyone who strays into the relevant zone will be in breach of the law, as envisaged by this legislation, and will be subject to the full rigours of the law. It is as simple as that outside the 6-mile zone. Any Northern Ireland fishing boats that will be within our 6-mile zone will only be there by legal permit under this legislation. It has been suggested that there is no Northern Ireland fishing register, but there is such a register. When a boat is registered, a port of operation and a region of operation must be designated. Therefore, there is a specific register for Northern Ireland boats. That is clearly the situation. The register is available for-----