Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent)
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129. To ask the Minister for Defence if he will provide an update on the patrol of Irish fishing waters; and the action being taken to counteract illegal dumping, damage and poaching of fish. [24382/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The primary day-to-day tasking of the Naval Service, as provided in the White Paper on Defence (2000), is to provide a fishery protection service in accordance with national legislation and the State’s obligations as a member of the European Union. In 2014, the Naval Service carried out a total of 1,074 patrol days and undertook 936 boardings of vessels, issued 31 warnings and detained 10 vessels. In addition, the Air Corps’ CASA Maritime Patrol aircraft conducted 269 missions throughout the year. The Air Corps operates closely with Naval Service vessels at sea to promote compliance with fisheries legislation.

In order to achieve compliance with quota and other conservation measures under the Common Fisheries Policy, Naval Service and Air Corps fisheries protection operations and priorities are agreed each year with the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and the Fisheries Monitoring Centre, which is based in the Naval Base, Haulbowline facilitates this work.

The L.E. Aoife was decommissioned in January 2015 and will be replaced by L. E. James Joyce in the near future. This will bring the number of Naval Service vessels back to eight. In 2016, a further new vessel will replace L. E. Aisling, which is now 35 years old.