I thank the chairman for the opportunity to address the joint committee on this important fisheries topic. Before I go into the detail of my address, I should say that this proposal was adopted as Council Regulation (EU) No. 712/2010 on 26 July 2010.
There are several aspects to this proposal. It was introduced to amend the 2010 total allowable catches, TAC, and quotas regulation, agreed last December, following the opening by the North Atlantic Fisheries Organisation of the cod fishery in the North Atlantic Fisheries area 3M, which is in the northwest Atlantic off Canada and Greenland, and redfish fishery in NAFO 3LN following a ten year moratorium. This fishery takes place in waters of the northwest Atlantic Ocean and is of no interest to Ireland as none of our vessels fish in this area. Second, the regulation was intended to amend the total allowable catch and quota Regulation 53/2010 to take into account the reduced quota for bluefin tuna on foot of decisions taken at the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ICCAT, in February 2010. The ICCAT is a body which regulates the fishery of tuna fisheries throughout the Atlantic and is a regional fisheries management organisation, given that many of the tuna fish are outside the 200 mile zone of the countries that fish in them. Ireland supports the conservation measures adopted to protect bluefin tuna. We do not have any major commercial interest in this fishery but are able to avail of a very small by-catch allocation for this stock.
The proposed change in respect of the transfer of fishing effort and capacity in respect of the Netherlands, from the North Sea to the Irish Sea, does not have direct significant implications for Ireland. The transfer of fishing effort between different fishing regions covered by the cod recovery plan is permitted under the terms of the plan. The rules for such transfers are set down and require that member states transfer effort between different geographical areas provided that the fishing activity transferred involves the use of fishing gear which has been certified as catching less than 1% cod or involves partaking in cod avoidance trips where the catch composition involves less than a 5% catch of cod.
The Dutch have a good sole quota in the Irish Sea and also a small plaice quota in the Irish Sea. The Dutch were not given an allocation of beam trawl fishing effort in the Irish Sea, originally under the cod recovery plan, as they did not have a track record during the relevant reference period set down in the cod recovery plan, 2004-06 or 2005-07. However, because the Dutch have quotas in the Irish Sea, they are permitted to transfer effort, under restricted conditions, to allow them to catch their quotas. The transfer of beam trawl fishing effort permits the Netherlands to operate in this fishery but it must use fishing gear that involves either the use of selective fishing gear or undergo cod avoidance trips whereby it avoids high density cod areas.
The important aspect from an Irish perspective is the proposed change in respect of the cod recovery plan which allows for the exclusion of certain Irish vessels from the fishing effort restrictions — the so-called days at sea restrictions — contained in the cod recovery plan. Specifically in Ireland's case, three vessels were removed from these days at sea restrictions under this regulation because of their decision to use a highly selective sorting grid while targeting Norway lobster, sometimes known as nephrops, but also commonly known as Dublin Bay prawns.
The scientific advice on the state of cod stocks in the Irish Sea and the north west — the area from Donegal Bay north — is that the stocks have collapsed and the advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, ICES, is that the cod recovery should be closed. In the waters of the north-west coast of Ireland and west of Scotland and in the Irish Sea the cod stocks have declined dramatically over the past two to three decades, from a peak in the 1980s when average landings were in the region of 20,000 tonnes in the north west and west of Scotland, and 11,000 tonnes annual landings in the Irish Sea, to levels in 2009 where landings were 222 tonnes in the north west and west of Scotland area and 468 tonnes in the Irish Sea.
Stock biomass, that is, the size of the overall stock in the area, mirrors the same story as the landings review. The levels reached for stock biomass were almost 40,000 tonnes in the early 1980s in the north west and west of Scotland and 14,000 tonnes in the Irish Sea. These have declined to levels of about 5,000 tonnes in the north west and 1,000 tonnes in the Irish Sea in 2009. The scientific advice available for these cod stocks is that they are at dangerously low levels, they are outside safe biological limits and extensive recovery measures are needed.
It is in the context of these stark figures that serious efforts at cod recovery began in 2004. It was acknowledged that those measures, initiated in 2004, were having little or no impact and a more stringent set of measures was adopted in 2008 and implemented from February 2009 for all EU vessels fishing in these areas. The details of the cod recovery plan are set out in Council Regulation (EC) No. 1342/2008 of 18 December 2008.
Under the new plan, each member state received annual allocations of cod fishing effort for the ICES areas covered by the plan, which include the Irish Sea and the north west of Ireland and west of Scotland. The allocations of fishing effort are based on each member state's historical patterns of fishing with particular types of fishing gear in the relevant areas during the relevant time period. A 25% cut in that effort was introduced in 2009 with a further 25% cut introduced for 2010. These stringent measures had a serious impact on Irish vessels that operate in an area of mixed fishery where avoiding cod is extremely difficult at times.
Article 11 of the cod recovery Regulation 1342/2008 allowed for the exclusion of certain vessels that could demonstrate that the gear type they were using was highly selective and reduced the catches of cod to a minimum. The vessels in question use a grid in their fishing net called a "Swedish grid" that has been shown to be very effective in allowing cod to escape from the net. We have been successful, under this regulation, in getting three vessels in under this measure whose owners have trialled the use of this fishing gear and have committed to its use going forward. The effect is that the vessels are excluded from the effort restrictions in the Irish Sea when fishing for prawns, following a case prepared by the Marine Institute and BIM and made by the Department to the EU Commission. The case was evaluated by the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, an EU body for examining such cases, and was recommended by that committee. The exclusion of the vessels from the effort regime, the days at sea regime, for prawns was legalised by the adoption of the regulation which is under discussion here today.
Effectively, these vessels are no longer subject to the effort restrictions imposed on the rest of the fleet. The committee may ask why more vessels do not follow this route. Essentially it appears to be a question of economics. These three vessels target prawns and have made a decision to specialise in that fishery. For most vessels operating in the prawn fishery in the Irish Sea, by-catches of whitefish such as cod and haddock provide a modest but important part of the financial returns for a fishing trip. By using the specialist fishing gear that allows much of the whitefish to escape, the operators become wholly reliant on the income from prawns.
BIM and the Marine Institute are working with the industry to promote the increased use of highly selective fishing gear in the prawn fishery in the Irish Sea. The experience to date is that vessels prepared to use, on a full-time basis, the Swedish grid can be permanently excluded from the fishing effort, the days at sea regime. Vessels may also use other selective fishing gear and Ireland has trialled the use of separator panels in the prawn gear. Separator panels reduce the by-catch of cod to below 5% but do not bring it down to below 1.5%, which is the critical threshold if one wants to be excluded from the fishing effort restrictions. On that basis, vessels committed to using separator panels will not be in a position to make a case to have the vessels permanently excluded from the effort regime. However, the cod recovery plan permits the allocation of additional fishing effort by vessels using this fishing gear. It is hoped that more vessels will be in a position to use highly selective fishing gear in the prawn fishery which will have the benefit of reducing the size of the cod catch and help rebuild the stock and allow the vessels either increased fishing effort or, ideally, exclusion from the effort regime completely.
