Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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211. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the efforts he has undertaken to reinstate the European Commission derogation for Ireland in relation to weigh fish once they have been transported to the factory. [59178/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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Ireland was notified of a Commission Implementing Decision revoking the approval of the Irish control plan submitted for the weighing of fishery products. The European Commission has deemed that Ireland’s obligations arising from Regulation (EC) No 1224/2009 were not being met by the Irish control plan as the risk of non-compliance with the rules of the common fisheries policy could not be minimised.

The monitoring and control of fishing vessels within Ireland’s Exclusive Fisheries Zone are matters for the Irish control authorities.  Under the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act, 2006, all operational issues of this nature are exclusively for the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) and the Naval Service.  As Minister, I am precluded from getting involved in operational control matters such as this.

I understand that the SFPA submitted a Control Plan to the EU Commission for review and approval on 22nd September 2021. A new draft plan must be accepted by the Commission and formally adopted by it under legislation.

Subsequently, the SFPA has advised that it has had comprehensive engagement with DG Mare on the plan.The SFPA advised that it has updated industry representatives on the discussions with DG Mare.

During EU Commissioner Virginius Sinkevicius visit to Killybegs recently, representatives of the fishing industry set out the challenges facing the industry in the absence of a control plan that would allow weighing of fish in factories. I asked the Commissioner, during this visit, to give as much priority as possible to the Commission’s examination of Ireland’s draft control plan given the real challenges currently being faced by the industry.

I am keeping the lines of communication open with Commissioner Sinkevicius over the coming period  so that he understands the challenges that would practically arise if a new Control plan is not in place for the beginning of the 2022 pelagic season.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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212. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the amount of fish caught in Irish waters from 2016 to 2021 by species of fish and by the nationality of fishing trawlers in tabular form. [59179/21]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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In June 2018 in the context of preparation for Brexit, a fact sheet was published setting out the landings from the Irish Exclusive Zone for the years 2011 to 2015. 

Under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), official landing statistics are reported by Member States by ICES division, rather than by Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), and most ICES divisions straddle more than one EEZ area.  Landings are also reported by statistical rectangles - these are the smallest spatial unit by which catches are reported (approx. 36 x 30 nautical miles in size).

In order to estimate the landings from the Irish EEZ, the Marine Instiute has advised that the best available method is to sum the data by statistical rectangle for all of these units in the Irish EEZ. For rectangles that fall partially inside the EEZ, the landings inside the EEZ are assumed to be proportional to the spatial area of the rectangle that lies inside the EEZ.

Annual international landings data, by species and country, at the statistical rectangle level is held by Joint Research Centre (JRC) on behalf of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF).  The data made available to the Marine Institute for the most recent years does not currently provide catch data at country and species level by year on landings taken in the relevant ICES areas..

The Marine Institute has access to the detailed data for Irish vessels, as well as the international data from JRC.  On this basis it has estimated the proportion of the total landings from the Irish EEZ taken by Irish vessels with the balance taken by vessels of other Member States and Third countries. 

The attached tables, compiled by the Marine Institute, set out the weight (in tonnes) and approximate value (in thousands of Euro) of landings from the Irish EEZ by Ireland for the top 25 species for the period 2015 to 2019.  The data sets for 2020 and 2021 are not available yet. 

Table 1 provides a breakdown of the landings tonnage of the top 25 species by year. Overall Irish vessels take 35.5% of the landings but this figure varies greatly by species. If only the species managed under the TAC and Quota system are taken into account, the percentage of landings by Irish vessels is 31.6%.

Table 2 gives an approximate monetary value of the landings by applying the average value (price per kg at first sale) of the Irish landings to the dataset. The percentages per species are the same as the tonnage because the same mean price was applied to Irish and non-Irish landings. The overall percentage of the value of the landings taken by Irish vessels from the Irish EEZ is 38.8% for all species and 36.1% for TAC species only.

I have asked my Department to work with the Marine Institute to prepare an information paper setting out this information and make it publicly available.