Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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Question 521: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will request his EU ministerial colleagues to address the wasteful practice of fish quota discards. [15250/11]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I am very concerned about the unacceptable practice of discarding fish at sea and I am fully committed to working both nationally and internationally to bring about an end to this practice. Commissioner Damanaki has placed discarding of fish high on her agenda for the Common Fisheries Policy reform and at my meeting with her on the 14 of April made clear that I was committed to giving Ireland's support to assisting the Commissioner in identifying and implementing the appropriate measures to effectively address discards.

At home I have taken a number of opportunities to discuss this complex subject with the Irish fishing industry. I am happy to say that they are also grappling with ways to reduce and ultimately eliminate discards and are currently engaging in trials on selective gears in the Celtic Sea haddock and whiting fisheries, with a view to bringing proposals to me in the next few weeks. As soon as I receive these proposals from industry, I intend to bring these proposals to my French counterpart as a possible joint approach to the EU Commission as France and Ireland are the main players in these fisheries. If we are successful in agreeing new measures with France and secure EU Commission support, I would be prepared to promote their introduction at national level in both jurisdictions pending their adoption at EU level.

Discarding has been receiving huge exposure across various international media, setting a negative picture of the global fishing industry. Decisive action is required in the short term, however, the problem is complex with many and at times disconnected factors impacting on it. This level of complexity requires an approach, which recognises the multifaceted issues, the different dynamics of individual fisheries and areas and delivers real policies and change on a number of fronts.

Any resolution will require the buy in of our fishermen and a significant behavioural shift will be required from them to successfully eliminate discards. Without this change in operational patterns there will be a real danger that whatever new legislation is introduced it will only succeed in pushing discarding further "underground" and this would worsen the current data situation and not deal with the problem. Discards was a high priority in Ireland's formal submission on the CFP Review forwarded last year, which argued for a fishery specific approach involving remedial actions to reduce or eliminate discards involving changes to fishing gear and fishing practices. It focused on the development of a strong industry, science, gear technology partnership to best equip our fleets for their specific needs. It also promoted the development of a Code of Practice to incentivise best practice.

My preference is for a clear policy to eliminate discards, backed up by unambiguous and appropriate technical measures and supports which can demonstrably achieve the stated policy goal. To my mind, there has been little elaboration on the suite of measures and supports that will be necessary. This is undermining the discussion to date.

One of the possible measures being looked at is the concept of catch quota management which involves landing all catches of targeted stocks and recording the landings against quota. There are pilot schemes up and running in some Member States and I await the outcome of those, though it is already clear to me that any move in this direction would have to be over a reasonable timeframe, provide some adjustment in quota to take account of the increased landings and be on a voluntary basis in the first instance. This approach is technical and requires a significant capital investment in equipment and human resources which will have to be facilitated by financial support from the EU if it is to become a reality.

From an national perspective in addition to the industry led trials in the Celtic Sea already mentioned, Ireland is preparing a project proposal for the Biologically Sensitive Area (BSA) of the South and West coasts of Ireland, with a view to developing clear management objectives for the area, with a strong focus on the elimination of discards, in the key Hake, Monk and Megrim fisheries. I hope to submit this project to Commissioner Damanaki as soon as possible. If acceptable it will require further negotiations with my colleagues in the UK, Spain and France. The overall objective is to develop a regionalised plan agreed by ourselves, France, the UK and Spain setting out appropriate measures to meet stringent conservation objectives for the area. It could be a roadmap for other programmes to deal with the discard issue across Europe.

On discussions and moves to address the discards problem generally, I fully intend, over the course of the negotiations on CFP reform to engage with my EU Ministerial Colleagues to bring this wasteful practice to an end.