Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)
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Question 217: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will address the concerns of a person (details supplied) in County Donegal with a white fish licence who has been designated just one day at sea for 2009; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13897/09]

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. 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.

Under the plan, each Member State is required to introduce a licensing regime to manage its effort allocations. Any vessel longer than 10 metres overall must have an authorisation from its Member State in order to operate in one of the designated areas using the fishing gears covered by the plan. Member States can decide on the method of allocating their national pools of fishing effort, which are broken down by fishing gear type. Following consultations with representatives of the Irish fishing industry, the Department introduced a pilot system of authorisations and allocations of fishing effort for the period from 1 February to 30 April 2009.

The pilot scheme used the following approach to allocate fishing effort in areas VIa and VIIa to Irish vessels for the pilot management period of 1 February to 30 April 2009:

The track records of vessels operating in VIa and VIIa during the reference period of 2005-2008 were assessed to determine their eligibility to receive an authorisation to fish and an allocation of days-at-sea under the pilot scheme. Each vessel's "best year" of fishing days in the areas during the reference period was used to establish its track record.

Distribution bands were established for each of the specified gear types to facilitate the allocation of days-at-sea to vessels based on their track records with those gears. Each vessel's level of track record with a gear type fit into one of the distribution bands for that gear type. The vessel then was allocated the number days-at-sea for that gear which were associated with that distribution band.

The days-at-sea allocations for the first management period (1 February to 30 April 2009) were given on a pro-rata basis for each gear type based on Irish vessels' traditional fishing pattern with the gears in the area during that those months (e.g., if the months were traditionally very busy for a gear type, a higher portion of days-at-sea were allocated for that gear).

Initially, vessels with less than 10 days of track record in their best years during the reference period received no allocation of fishing effort. Following further consultations and following on recommendations from industry Minister Killeen decided on the 18th of February this year to adopt the following approach in respect of those vessels for the remainder of the Pilot period.

Vessels with track records of less than 10 days but more than five days to be given an allocation of three days at sea for the current management period. Vessels with track records of five days or less but at least one day to be given an allocation of one day at sea for the current management period.

I am advised that the vessel referred to by the Deputy had 2 days of track record in 2008 and no track record in respect of the any of the other reference period years. Consequently, the allocation for this vessel was determined on the basis of the second category above in that he was given an allocation of one day for the current management period. The authorisation in this case was issued on the 20th of February, 2009.

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 Fisherman'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 happy to make amendments where proposed by the Steering Group within the legal framework that has been established.