Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Cathaoirleach and all the Senators who contributed for their valuable input. As so much has been said, I will not be able to respond to each Senator individually but I will try insofar as I can, with the few minutes I have left, to cover some of the issues.

Senator Blaney knows far more about fishing than I do but, by the same token, there is a lot in common between us, as others have mentioned as well. I come from a small farm and I understand the impact, particularly on the inshore sector, of the changes that have taken place. That has been my guiding light through this. He mentioned numerous issues that will be worked through by the Kieran Mulvey approach I am taking, such as taxation measures and looking at how we manage, on the other side, the huge opportunity for offshore renewables. The State is very clear and we are investing heavily in grid infrastructure to support the bringing of offshore renewables ashore. Senator Paul Daly reflected on the challenges that are there. While it is an important part of the decarbonisation of our economy to generate electricity from a much cleaner resource and to do so with the demand increasing as we get rid of fossil fuels, that energy must be generated somewhere. The Senator is right in that there is, in the first instance, the commercial activity of fishing but we also have commitments on the marine protection side. We have made a commitment to have identified 30% of our ocean space as marine protected areas to protect marine biodiversity by 2030. It is a large space considering that our sea space is seven times greater than our land mass. This is hugely important for protecting our fish stocks, seagrasses and various elements in that biodiversity sphere, which will be beneficial and helpful to fishing in the long run from a sustainability perspective. It does, however, have impacts upfront and I am conscious of that. This will be a role on which I will have to work with colleagues in each of the Departments to try to ameliorate, insofar as I can, the greatest impact. We will have to work with stakeholders on that.

I thank all the Senators for their passionate approach to this. Senator Boyle, whom I have had the opportunity with all here to meet, particularly in the various different areas, set out very clearly the impact this has had on the sector. I have said from the start that I will not be in a position to change decisions taken in 1973 or 1982 or 1981. It is a burden on all of us to fathom how we ended up in a situation where we have so little quota in our own waters, but we must also understand they are not technically our waters. They are European waters. We have the six- or 12-mile limit, etc., and the Irish box but, truthfully, the vast majority of our seas are European waters and that is where the fish is.

I do not want to go back to 1973 or even the years since but we had a very underdeveloped fishing sector when we entered the European Union. Other countries were far more advanced and had track records in that area. We did not have quotas at that stage and it was as a result of the decision taken then that these countries have quota. To win back quota, some other country have to give it up and we do not have a veto. There are others who are passionate and I understand how opposition works, whereby Europe has to give way with a qualified majority on all of this. No matter how hard I bang the table, therefore, how loudly I scream or how great a nuisance I make of myself, people will say "Yes" but when we come to a decision or vote, we might not have the backing of others. Without that, it is not possible to get a better allocation of existing quotas. Where I do see potential opportunities, and we are in the early stages of exploring this with the Commission, is in recognising the impact of climate change and the way in which stocks are migrating into our waters because of the warming of waters further south. We are losing our potential quota stock on the upper end with fish migrating further north as well. That may have an impact at a later stage.

Regarding the current process with the CFP, which several people talked about it, an evaluation is under way. I am hopeful this will lead to a review, which will give some opportunities to argue points some Senators have made. I am also conscious, however, that it is not a poisoned chalice but a potential opportunity. Even so, it is not an open-door policy or an opening of the doors that will necessarily allow quota to flow in Ireland's direction because we feel we have been hard done by in Brexit, although I believe we have been by virtue of where our fleet was in the early stages. To gain quotas, someone has to give way and lose and that is a challenge where diplomacy will come into play. We are working very hard at departmental level to try to build alliances among like-minded states. I am engaging in bilaterals to build friends, not to negotiate. The negotiation is done by the European Union.

I heard from Senator Collins from Sinn Féin that we should demand Ireland take certain action, but that is not how the European Union works. The only way we could do that is by leaving the Union and then acting in a unilateral way, but I do not think anyone here is suggesting that is the solution to our difficulty either. It is about diplomacy, and that also applies to Rockall. Several people spoke about the squid fishery we lost in Rockall. We have disputed vociferously the UK's approach and belief regarding Rockall as being in its territorial waters. We have never accepted that. We had some chance of retaining that fishery while it remained in EU waters but Brexit changed that landscape. We will continue to do that. The Tánaiste is very clear on that as Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and continues to engage on this, as does the Taoiseach. I will be in the UK on 9 July to meet various stakeholders at political level. I will raise that in this context as would be appropriate but, again, that is a diplomatic issue that will rattle on for some time. We are committed to not recognising the British position and we recognise that if we could get access to those waters, it would be very helpful.

Some Senators spoke about the SFPA. We must be conscious of the role the SFPA plays but there are some questions of oversight. There is a board and people within the SFPA have responsibility, having been appointed by the State. I do not have any input into the functioning of the SFPA. It acts as an independent body and a volume of legislation provides for the work it does. It is also part of our European membership and certain control regulations oversee all of that. Ideas are coming forward from the industry and so on as to how we can have more effective oversight through the use of technology and we will certainly look at that. There were proposals for the specific designation of the pier in Killybegs in a manner that would allow for it to be monitored electronically, which may prove to be of some benefit in addressing that.

I am sure there were other points I have not been able to get to because of-----