Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 173: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the procedures which exist that would allow him to raise at head of Government level the need for further reform of the European common fisheries policy to ensure greater control across national boundaries of quota management and other enforcement regulations; and his views regarding the lack of such a co-ordinated control system at the upcoming European Council meeting. [6513/06]

John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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Under the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, each member state has delegated responsibility to manage its quotas as it sees fit. The system of allocating the quotas differs widely from member state to member state. Ireland allocates the fishing quotas for defined periods of time while other member states divide the national quota between fishing representative organisations or to individual fishing vessels. This mixture of systems does not lend itself easily to a situation whereby the entitlements of every fishing vessel may be known throughout the Community.

However, there are a number of systems already in place that facilitate control of fishing vessels of other member states. Certain information is available to the Irish control authorities on the fishing entitlements of other member states' vessels. For instance, member states inform each other of the fishing entitlements of individual vessels by way of circulated lists of fishing vessels with entitlement to participate in the individual fisheries. These lists are circulated to the Naval Service and land-based inspectorate of the Department. Where a member state has put in place a prohibition on any fishery, for example when the quota is exhausted, this is notified by the Commission to all member states so that the control authorities in the member states are aware that a fishing stop is in place for that species.

As a general rule, I agree with the Deputy that it would be desirable to secure improved co-ordination and exchange of quota information between member states in order to combat over-fishing. While there is some scope available under current circumstances to exchange information on catches, it tends to be rather limited. In that regard, I want to clarify to the House a point made in a reply to a similar question from the Deputy on 25 January 2006 when reference was made to Ireland's control services advising the flag member state of the logged catches of vessels boarded. Currently, this is not established practise in all cases. This matter should be progressed as part of an overall effort of strengthened control at European level and I wish to inform the Deputy that the subject was raised at our meeting with Commissioner Borg yesterday.

The objective of securing a more co-ordinated control system was a key feature of the CFP reform process in 2002. The reformed CFP contains a specific chapter dealing with control and sets a variety of requirements that all member states must implement to ensure that fisheries resources are adequately protected. In addition, the Fisheries Council agreed in 2005 to establish a Community fisheries control agency to improve co-operation and co-ordination between the control authorities of member states. The agency is to be based in Vigo, Spain and is expected to become operational before the end of 2006. This agency may indeed provide a very useful mechanism to progress this issue of better information exchange on quotas and catches and I wish to inform the Deputy that at yesterday's meeting, the Commission indicated that it intended that this and related control issues should be discussed at an early date under the auspices of the agency.