Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 113: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will provide a special white fish fishing exemption for the duration of 2009 in area 6A for boats of less than 12 metres in length. [11982/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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New rules restricting fishing vessels' days at sea in the Irish Sea and the waters to the northwest of Ireland and Scotland have been introduced as part of the EU's revised Cod Recovery Plan. These rules are applicable apply to all vessels greater than 10m in length. There is no provision in the rules to allow for any kind of blanket exemption to vessels that happen to be greater than 10m and less than 12m in length.

The plan has introduced a new system of effort management that sets effort ceilings (expressed in kilowatt-days) for groups of vessels or fleet segments. The management of these ceilings has been devolved to the national level. Member States have received annual allocations of fishing effort for the areas covered by the Plan, which include the Irish Sea (ICES area VIIa) and the waters to the northwest of Ireland and Scotland (ICES area VIa). The effort allocation levels were established by the EU Fisheries Council on the basis of an EU Commission proposal. They were calculated by averaging the fishing activity levels of each Member State in the areas during a reference period of 2004-2006 or 2005-2007 and then reducing that effort by 25%. This methodology means there is now limited fishing effort available for all Community vessels, including Irish vessels, fishing in the designated areas.

I appreciate that the introduction of these new conservation measures are a challenge and I have established a Steering Group involving the Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF), The Irish Fishermen's Organisation (IFO) the Department and agencies to provide support to the industry in relation to the practical implementation of these new measures. The effort allocations already made were done on a pilot basis only and I am prepared to make amendments where proposed by the Steering Group within the legal framework that has been established.