Pauline O'Reilly (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

It is not an exaggeration to say there is a crisis in fishing. This week, as expected, saw an increase in overfishing for sprat at Rossaveal. I have been contacted by local fishers in Galway and environmental organisations in recent days, asking me to call on the Minister to act urgently on the hollowing out of marine life along the west coast, and I thank him for coming to the House to address it.

The step taken to ban trawlers of more than 18 m in length from fishing within six nautical miles of the coast has been called one of the most important fisheries policy shifts in the history of the State. It was very much welcomed in a letter sent 13 days ago to the Minister from BirdWatch Ireland, the National Inshore Fishermen's Association, An Taisce, the Cork Environmental Forum, the Cork Nature Network, the Coomhola Salmon Trust, Environmental Pillar, Friends of the Irish Environment, the Irish Seal Sanctuary, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Trust, Irish Wildlife Trust, Oceana, Seas at Risk, the Sustainable Water Network and Our Fish. I name all these groups to emphasise the importance of the ban to the public we represent. As the Minister will be aware, it was, devastatingly, overturned on a technicality last summer.

The impact of this has been felt particularly in respect of sprat. Sprat is a keystone species in our bays, vital to the ocean food chain. It is intrinsic to the very ecosystem of the seas around us, feeding fish from herring, mackerel and whitefish to dolphin and porpoise. When pods of dolphins are in the bay, one can be sure they are feeding on sprat. Now, the future of all these species hangs in the balance due to intensive overfishing of their prey. Fishing communities have been left devastated by this intensive trawling, as their stock dries up with nothing to feed on. While it has been found to be legal, that is the issue. It is up to the Minister to legislate and issue policy directives to protect fishing communities and marine life, and to reimplement the ban. Bays act as nurseries for juvenile fish, and with sprat now being used for meal and not for human consumption, there is nothing to stop the very youngest being fished, ground up and sold to farms, including fish, mink and pig farms.

The additional difficulty is that no quotas or total allowable catch exist for sprat fishing, unlike for other pelagic fish such as herring and mackerel. I have heard reports of up to 200 tonnes coming from an area in a single day per fishing pier, the equivalent of 52 million fish. We must act now, when fishing and nature hang in the balance. What is new is that it has reached fever pitch at Rossaveal in Galway over the past week, with more boats arriving than ever before as the season gets going. It is simply not fair or just that our local fishing communities have quotas when there are no quotas or jobs in respect of sprat. Fishers and environmental NGOs have joined together to call for action on this important issue for marine biodiversity, a sustainable industry and the social benefits for life along the west coast, from west Cork to Donegal.

What emergency action can the Minister take to address this urgent issue? The ban is a commitment in the programme for Government. It appears that the justification in the courts for overruling it was based on issues with the public consultation and not with the ban itself. Will the Minister commit to addressing this to reinstate the ban? In the long term, what actions is he taking to stabilise sustainable stocks for our fishing community and nature itself?