Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine debate -
Wednesday, 8 Dec 2021

Fishing Industry: Discussion

Chairman

Deputy Mac Lochlainn is substituting for Deputy Carthy and Deputy Pringle is substituting for Deputy Fitzmaurice. Apologies have been received from Senator Paul Daly.

I remind members that in the context of the current Covid-19 restrictions, only the Chairman and staff are present in the committee room and all members must join remotely from elsewhere in the parliamentary precincts. The secretariat can issue invitations to join the meeting on Microsoft Teams. Members may not participate in the meeting from outside the parliamentary precincts. I ask members to mute their microphones when they are not making a contribution and to use the raised hand function to indicate a wish to contribute. Members should note that messages sent in the meeting chat are visible to all participants. Speaking slots will be prioritised for members of the committee.

Our agenda today is fishing quotas and decommissioning. I would like to welcome the following representatives of the fish producers' organisations. I welcome Mr. Seán O'Donoghue, CEO, and Mr. Ciaran Doherty, chairman, from Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation Limited, who are joining us from a committee room. I also welcome Mr. John Ward, CEO of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation, Mr. Patrick Murphy, CEO of the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation and Mr. John Lynch, CEO of the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation, who are all joining remotely. They are welcome to the meeting.

Our guests will be given five minutes each to make their opening statements before we go into questions and answers. Before we begin, I have an important notice to give on the topic of parliamentary privilege. Witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the committee. However, if they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter to only a qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and they are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person, persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable.

Participants in the committee meeting from a location outside the parliamentary precincts are asked to note that the constitutional protections afforded to those participating from within the parliamentary precincts does not extend to them. No clear guidance can be given on whether or to what extent their participation is covered by absolute privilege of a statutory nature.

I now call on Mr. O'Donoghue of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation to make his opening statement.

Mr. Seán O'Donoghue

I thank the Chair and committee members for inviting us to this important meeting on two issues that are critical to us, which are, the total allowable catches, TACs, and quotas for 2022, and decommissioning. The timing of this meeting is good in that the December meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council starts on Sunday, 13 December. This is an opportune time to have this discussion.

There are a number of issues I want to address without going through all of the opening statement I have submitted in five minutes. The first of those is very important, in that the clout of the Council of Fisheries Ministers has been diminished in the light of Brexit and the trade and co-operation agreement, TCA. As we sit here today, the EU-UK bilateral negotiations have not been completed. Until they are completed, the council will not be able to, in essence, rubber-stamp the TACs and quotas for next year.

The key message I want to get across about the setting of TACs and quotas for next year is that the EU-UK bilateral agreement, which is part of the TCA, is critical. From an Irish point of view, approximately 58 of the 60-odd stocks in which we have an interest are covered in the TCA. If the TCA were to be taken out of consideration, the council will be left with two stocks to deal with. That is not going to apply only for this year. This is the new scenario in which we live, in light of Brexit and the TCA. We, as industry representatives, feel isolated, even aside from Covid, which is causing problems in terms of physical briefings. We feel we are being isolated and do not have the same input to the Fisheries Council, where all of these decisions were made in previous yeas, because of the EU-UK bilateral arrangement. We are emphasising to the Minister and to the committee that it is important a process is put in place to deal with the stakeholder involvement on the EU and UK ends.

When it comes to the total allowable catches, TACs, and quotas for next year, the one thing that will not happen either at the EU-UK bilateral discussion or, indeed, the Fisheries Council is a look at the relative stability percentage shares that member states have. That will not be dealt with at the December Fisheries Council. It will be dealt with, hopefully, by the Commission's report at the end of next year. We are demanding that there is a full review and change in those relative stability percentage shares. In terms of today, I have stuck rigidly to the TAC and quota proposals for next year.

There are a few big items that stick out and that I want to highlight. Something the Commission in bringing forward its proposals - it cannot put in figures at this stage until the EU-UK bilateral is finalised as such - seems to continually provide for is that the Common Fisheries Policy requires that not alone do you look at the biology and the sustainability of the stocks but that you must look at the socioeconomic effects as well. The Commission consistently failed to do that in its proposals as such and leaves it to the Council to do that even though the Council really does not have any power this year as they EU-UK bilateral will be looking at it.

One issue we really want to highlight is the mackerel situation and what Norway and the Fareo Islands did this year. Norway increased its quota by 55% or a whopping 100,000 tonnes. I am not getting the figure wrong here. It is 100,000 tonnes of extra mackerel. The Commission has been sitting on its hands here and preaching to us about sustainability. We have been after them over the past six months, that they need to bring in sanctions. They have the legal mechanisms to do this. We are calling on the Council, on Sunday and Monday next, to address this issue and instruct the Commission that this Norway and Fareo Islands reckless and irresponsible behaviour has to stop.

Chairman

I thank Mr. O'Donoghue. In the question and answer session, he will have a chance to make more points. I call on Mr. Ward to make his opening statement.

Mr. John Ward

My colleague from the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation, KFO, covered many of the points contained in the statement that I circulated to members. I will move on to decommissioning.

As far as the Irish fish producers are concerned, the decommissioning was agreed at the task force. While it is unfortunate and it is not something that our industry was hoping to achieve, it is something that was foisted upon us. We have a situation where we have a mismatch between the available quotas for our demersal fleet and the size of the fleet, and in that instance we would be tasked also by the European Commission to decommission. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil. We would like to see the Department think outside the box and find some way to bank some of this tonnage so it would leave an opportunity for young fishermen coming into the fleet in future years to be able to get tonnage. An unfortunate situation is created by decommissioning. Once this capacity is taken out of our fleet, it is gone forever and we cannot get it back. This is something that I would like to see the committee take on board.

I reiterate the comments that my colleague made about the mackerel situation. It is critical for Ireland in future years that the Commission acts by taking some steps against these countries which are declaring unilateral quotas. They will effectively destroy this mackerel fishery which is so very important to Irish fishermen.

The results of our recent task force should have empowered the Minister to seek some resolution from our European partners about the inordinate price that Ireland has paid for Brexit.

We, as an industry, are concerned that while in the past the European Council that happens in Brussels later this month was an opportunity for the Minister and his officials to barter and negotiate with our European partners on each others priorities, we now have a situation where most of the stocks that we are concerned about must be agreed, primarily with the UK in the EU-UK bilaterals, and we are very concerned that we have limited input to this process. It is something that we as an industry have to be very concerned about.

I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to talk to the committee.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Ward. I call on Mr. Murphy to make his opening statement.

Mr. Patrick Murphy

I thank the Chairman and the committee for giving us the opportunity to come before the committee to highlight what is facing our industry. Two of the key topics, as identified by my two colleagues, are decommissioning and the total allowable catches, which, to explain how critical this is, is the amount of fish that each country is allowed to catch under the Common Fisheries Policy to ensure that the stocks remain healthy, that they are not overfished and that they would be there again the following year.

The fly in the ointment now is that Brexit has happened and the UK has taken away its waters from us. Under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, TCA, deal that was negotiated, the UK got to catch and retain 75% of the fish in its waters, leaving 25% for the European Union countries. They also retain some entitlements for quota outside of their waters, within ours and other countries' within the EU. We are left with 15% of the pie - the best way to describe it - giving away 85% to the other countries which have access to these stocks.

We have been hit by Covid in the past two years. Our markets, our market share and the prices have been decimated. You will have seen only this week what fishermen are up against - the storms and gales that hit our coastline. If you are not out fishing, you are not earning. On top of that, there is this TCA deal that we feel we got very badly treated in. On top of this coming this year, the science is not very good for the total allowable catches and we are seeing our opportunities being decimated further and the stocks that are so important to us being cut. That will heighten the problems for our industry to try to earn a living. We are governed by a great many regulations, such as the landing obligation. If we fall foul of them in a mixed-stock fishery we find ourselves in problems and difficulties as well, which we learned yesterday during one of the meetings with the European Commission.

All these events have overtaken our industry and we are talking then about one of the solutions that seems to be presented to us, and that is decommissioning. We have seen decommissioning introduced into our fleet in the past number of years. This is the third such decommissioning scheme. Where I see fleets on the Continent modernising and building new boats to come to our waters to go fishing, we, on the other hand, are now seeing a proposal being presented to the Minister where 60 vessels will be decommissioned out of an active 180 vessels. On top of that, there is also off-registered tonnage to be decommissioned. At a rate of €5,000 per tonne, if that is what it will make, that is another six boats that will never enter our fishing industry, bringing us to a total of 66 boats.

This is what our industry is facing. We sit on the continental shelf. When I was growing up, I was taught that Ireland had the richest fishing grounds in the world. This is where fish come to spawn and breed. It is very hard for me, as a representative of my industry, to tell my fishermen that we are facing an unnecessary evil. We should be looking for more fish. The reason we should be doing so is that the Common Fisheries Policy is to be reviewed next year, as my colleague, Mr. O'Donoghue, pointed out. Before this review, when we will have a chance to get more fish, we are instead looking at getting rid of a third of our fleet. I find that very hard to take.

As the committee has seen in our presentations, as a member of the task force, our group pointed out the cost on the open market of entering the industry right across the different sectors. There is evidence of this on page 18 of the report where it states that it would cost more than €20,000 per gross tonne to get a tier 1 polyvalent vessel out of the industry. Despite this, the proposal is still on the table. We have an enormous problem in the south and west of Ireland with the amount of money that has been set out and the terms and conditions attached to the decommissioning scheme. We made sure this was included in the task force report. We are completely and utterly against these kinds of reductions, such as changing vessels because of their age or condition. Once a vessel meets the standards in the code of practice, it should be allowed go to sea and have the same opportunities as any other vessel in the sector, regardless of age.

The easiest way to explain this to listeners and to those looking in on the meeting is to say that, if you got into a taxi in Dublin and it took you 50 miles down the road, there would be no difference between taxis with different number plates. One taxi would not charge you more than another with an older number plate. It is the same for fishing vessels. Once they are capable and once the Marine Survey Office, MSO, signs off on their ability to go to sea to fish under the code of practice, they should be given the same opportunities. We see boats being bought for up to €7 million. As set out in the report, their gross tonnages, GTs, would value them at perhaps €1.5 million to €2 million. This is not right. It does not take into consideration the loss of the business or the goodwill that would be shown to people in other businesses for leaving the industry. It does not take into consideration the loss of this industry to these people for a minimum of five years. As we state in our submission, we find some of the terms and conditions relating to decommissioning a vessel crazy such as that the owner is responsible for breaking up and destroying the vessel. We do not know how much this will cost. That is unknown. We have had no indication. We have had guesswork and people have come in to us but we have seen no paperwork. We know how important it is, in this day and age, to make sure that all materials are disposed of correctly. This comes at a cost. On top of that, we see that crews are to be paid out of this. Again, we do not know what this will cost.

It is the same for the total allowable catches, TACs. It is very hard for our members to understand why we are at this juncture. They did nothing wrong. They followed the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy. They are fishing and working with agencies such as Bord Iascaigh Mhara to develop new technical measures and gear to actually avoid fish. There are a great many measures to avoid fish. There is nearly less of a net to catch fish than to avoid them. This is the reality of the industry we are working in. I thank the Chair for the opportunity to discuss this further and in greater detail through questions from the Deputies and Senators.

Mr. John Lynch

I thank the Chairman for the invitation to speak at this evening's meeting. It is much appreciated. I support what my colleagues have said. They have covered most of the subjects we want to deal with very well. On the process of setting the fishing opportunities for 2022, as Mr. O'Donoghue has pointed out, the whole landscape has changed after Brexit and the trade and co-operation agreement, TCA. We are now dependent on EU-UK negotiations. Our input is probably late at this stage. We feel that the process needs to be somewhat changed for the future, perhaps starting with stakeholder involvement at an earlier stage.

On the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, we feel that a full review and reform is needed. The last time we were in this meeting room, we were looking for burden sharing in light of the effects of the TCA and the loss of a great amount of quota in that agreement. To this day, we have not had one kilo of fish returned to Ireland through burden sharing by our European partners. This is really a big concern for the industry in Ireland.

With regard to negotiations on total allowable catches, TACs, and quotas, in the statement I sent to the committee, I pointed out the species in respect of which the science is quite good or, in some cases, very good. I will not go through them all here because there is no point. Despite the science, the TACs for these species are down for relatively large and, in some cases, very large reductions. We have signed up to follow the science but the science is not being followed if account is not being taken of the scientific information available that shows positive indicators for stocks and if the Commission is still seeking reductions in TACs. That should be adjusted to correctly reflect the scientific situation.

On decommissioning, as my colleagues have mentioned, this issue was discussed at length in the task force. We have a problem with the discounts for the age of vessels because all vessels now have to have a safety certificate signed off by the MSO, as Mr. Murphy pointed out. This requires vessels to be kept up to a very high standard so all vessels going to sea in Ireland are of a very high standard. This is absolutely correct. The vessels are of a high safety standard, which is exactly what we want, but this should be reflected in the moneys being paid for decommissioning. These people are giving up their livelihoods through no fault of their own. It is because of the loss of quota under the TCA that we are told this has to happen. As we pointed out, we would much prefer to have our quota returned or our share adjusted under the relative stability principle to reflect fairness in fishing opportunities, but that will not come until after the proposed decommissioning programme.

On the issue of Norway unilaterally declaring a quota for mackerel in 2021, we have been arguing over this for many months now. We support the Killybegs Fishermens Organisation's position. The Commission needs to take action to resolve this or it will continue or even get worse. It may also expand to other countries. I will finish on that. I thank the Chairman very much for this opportunity.

Deputy Michael Collins

I welcome our guests who have come here today to speak about the continued crisis in fishing. It is something I have spoken on at great length in the Dáil. Serious errors were made in the run-up to the Brexit negotiations, which have cost us dearly. The Government failed to get a deal for the sector during Brexit negotiations and the only option it is now putting forward is a decommissioning plan. At the heart of this plan is an agenda to allow foreign vessels to take more fish from Irish waters while Irish vessels are forced to be decommissioned or remained tied up in ports. I have a few questions to ask on decommissioning at the end but I have a statement to read out first.

It appears €63.5 million will be paid to those families who are being forcefully removed from the fishing industry. This sum is to be deducted from €400 million in funding given to the Government from the €1.1 billion fund paid to Ireland by the EU. I might ask a further question on that later. We appear to be on the lower end of the scale as regards the funding we will get from the €1.1 billion fund. We have ended up with €63.5 million but our industry will probably be the most affected.

In summary, under the Brexit deal, Ireland contributed about 15% of the total value of our total 2020 fisheries quota to the agreement. Proportionately, that is substantially more than that of any other member state impacted. This was a disastrous deal for Irish fisheries. The Minister and the Government completely failed to protect the interests of the sector during the negotiations. Regardless of how much I pressed in the Dáil for other options to be put forward, they were not put forward by the Minister or the Government. It was extremely important that every option was considered. For example, even the task force report noted the case being made by some member states that if the transfers to the UK were evenly divided across each member state with fishing rights, it would involve a 5.8% transfer per member state. The Minister utterly failed to negotiate such a deal. Arguably, this was the worse ever deal negotiated by any Minister on behalf of the State.

The Irish seafood economy is estimated to be worth €1.22 billion. Approximately 16,400 people are employed by the industry, which includes ancillary services such as production, the servicing of fishing boats and net manufacture. Bord Iascaigh Mhara, Ireland's seafood development agency, states €400 million is generated through domestic consumption and €263 million through exports and imports. Some 2,030 fishing vessels were registered in Ireland as of 2020.

I could go on. The representatives of the industry know all about this. They held peaceful demonstrations in Cork and Dublin recently and got great support from the people. When I raised this issue in the Dáil the response I received, that there will be quota discussions in 2023 or later, effectively kicked the can down the road. It was as if to say those in the industry would be given some bit of compensation now to get rid of them and that would be the handiest way out of it.

While some of those in the industry agreed with the task force report, one fishing organisation did not and I completely support it. Are Mr. Murphy from the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation and the other representatives happy with the findings of the task force report? Do they consider €63.5 million to be a fair payout given that decommissioning seems to be the only answer the Government has? In the 12 months since the disastrous deal was signed, have there been any discussions with the industry on the next quota negotiations? I assume negotiations will start to see we can put up a fight to win something back. I would appreciate if the witnesses could answer those questions.

Chairman

I will bring in Mr. Murphy as the first question was addressed to him.

Mr. Patrick Murphy

I thank Deputy Collins for understanding the dire consequences that lie ahead of us. To put this in simple mathematical terms, this decommissioning scheme is based on the gross tonnage, GT, on board a vessel. There is power on board a vessel. One parameter that could indicate an overall value of a boat was chosen. For example, if we take the case of a boat with 200 GTs where the fisherman gets €10,000 per GT, by multiplying 200 by 10,000, we can calculate the figure that will be paid for the decommissioning of that boat. The report states that the decommissioning of 8,000 tonnes is being sought. If we multiply that figure by 12,000, the monetary figure would be up to €96 million. That leaves a shortfall of €31,800 million, which is the figure I put in the report.

To return to the reason we think this scheme is detrimental to our country, it will affect not only our fishing industry but every man, woman and child who lives on the island. Bord Iascaigh Mhara does an economic study on the industry every year. If we are set to lose one third of our boats and one third of our income from those boats, I believe the loss will be much more than the 15% figure the Deputy cited. We have lost access to areas of the English coastline and, for example, Rockall where we had a very important squid fishery worth €5 million. The sums keep adding up. Species are being lost to us and they have not been included in the figures.

To bring it down to figures, we have 16,420 jobs in the industry. If we lose one third of our earning power, it follows that we will lose 5,500 jobs. We have €560 million worth of exports. If we lose one third of that €560 million, all of which comes into the country each year from fishing, we will be down €180 million a year. That is large amount of money to be lost to the Exchequer and the economy as we come out of the Covid-19 crisis when money is being sought to support people.

The Deputy asked if the figures added up. They definitely do not add up. We submitted papers to the task force with respect to vessels and vessel owners gave me permission, if needed, to name them. They agreed to appear before the committee to outline what they paid for boats. They could prove what they had paid to get into the industry. The average amount paid was €14,500 and for the larger boats, the tier 1 vessels, the average paid was more than €25,000. It is not correct for those people to be told they can take less and go. No society should allow that to happen. The report indicates that €12,000 is the maximum that will be paid. Given there is only a budget of €63 million, we can see the intent from the outset. Those figures indicate a figure of less than €8,000 per GT. That is a poor reflection on our country, which has the richest fishing grounds.

We are going to see a third decommissioning scheme to allow, as the Deputy said, boats from other jurisdictions to increase their fishing efforts in our waters, make a living here, land catches all over the country and take Irish fish home to benefit their coastal communities, as is already happening. Having been a fisherman all my life, I find that incredible. In my village of Baltimore, from where I fish, I saw the industry being decimated by previous decommissioning schemes. Given the position I am, it would kill me to look back in the history books and see that our fleet had been decimated in such a manner again.

The crux of the matter is this. The report states €38 million worth of fish will come back into the fishery if we get what is being sought and all these boats are taken out. What happens if we do not get that? We will still have a shortfall. As I said, €38 million is not enough. We are short much more than that. We can see from the figures in the Marine Institute's stock book published in recent weeks that we are down €184 million. Adding €38 million to €84 million does not bring us up to the €250 million figure we had last year. There is still a shortfall. That means boats still do not have the opportunity to stay viable on the water. This leads to difficulties in a mixed stock fishery where they will be up against it to try to remain legal. There is no such thing as stop lights to tell one fish it can go in a net and the another it cannot. We are doing our best with technical measures to leave out all the small fish and allow the juveniles to escape through the T90 nets. We have escape panels, selector panels. We are working very hard to make sure we have a sustainable industry for the future. However, the toughest thing to accept is that this will benefit foreign fleets more than our own people at home. Fishermen will be told to leave the industry and to do so with less money than they put up to get into the industry.

Chairman

Does Mr. Doherty wish to comment?

Mr. Ciaran Doherty

I thank the Chairman and members for the opportunity to be here today. Everybody is seeking the figures for the Brexit deal and trying to find out how Ireland ended up in the position we are in.

It is very simple. A transfer to the UK of €183 million is going to happen annually and the Irish industry is on the hook for €43 million of that. How we ended up in this position is not the issue. We are where we are but we have control over what we can do going forward in terms of trying to get something back on burden-sharing. It is very easy to see how Ireland was thrown under the bus on this by Europe. In the context of mackerel, for example, the Irish industry is paying 40% of the transfer to the UK on pelagics alone. This 40% is on an annual basis and it will end up costing between €26 million to €28 million per year. Over a ten-year period, about €260 million to €300 million will be sucked out of the economy in Ireland, and that will have a massive impact on jobs in the coastal communities in which we live.

It is imperative the Government goes back to the EU, outlines the facts and figures to our European colleagues and gets some burden-sharing back for our industry. The amount of money that is being taken out of the industry is unsustainable. If the white fish industry as well as the pelagic sector is included, approximately €25 million of the €43 million is being sucked out of Donegal alone. I do not want to focus solely on Donegal though because the prawn men have lost on the east coast and all of the coastal communities in the south and west have lost as well. We are talking about hundreds of millions of euro being lost to our coastal communities over the next ten years. If there was an announcement tomorrow that companies were coming to the coastal regions to set up new industries that would put hundreds of millions into the economy over the next five to ten years, it would be a big story. Indeed, it would be a great story if it materialised. We have an industry that has been existence in these regions for decades and all it needs is support to continue.

Burden-sharing demands should be coming from our Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There should be a joint effort at European level to outline the facts and figures, to try to rectify the situation, and to get some quota back for Ireland. The situation with regard to mackerel in 2021 in the north Atlantic and the coastal states amounts to a smash-and-grab of the quota. It cannot be dressed up in any other way. It is a smash-and-grab and that has been the case since 2010. We in the industry are disillusioned, to say the least, given what has happened in 2021. On the back of the Brexit fallout, we have given away 21,000 tonnes of mackerel or 40% of the mackerel transfer from the EU to the UK. Countries like Denmark have only given away €3 million or €4 million while we have given away €27 million. Countries in the north Atlantic have increased their quota this year by 55% but there has not been one statement from the Taoiseach on fisheries matters. Compare this with countries like France, where President Macron regularly speaks for the French fishing industry. It is time for the highest politicians in the land in Ireland to start speaking up and highlighting what went on in 2021 as regards mackerel, which is the main fishery in Ireland. The 55% increase for certain countries, as Mr. O'Donoghue said, equates to 100,000 tonnes.

By the time this Brexit transfer is over in 2026, Ireland's quota will probably be somewhere south of 50,000 tonnes in total. In 2010, Iceland only had a quota of 2,000 tonnes of mackerel but now it is fishing between 160,000 and 170,000 tonnes of mackerel per year. The Faroe Islands has a quota of 145,000 tonnes, Greenland has a quota of 60,000 tonnes, Russia has a quota of around 100,000 tonnes, while Norway has a quota of 300,000 tonnes, but we cannot even get the European Commission to make a statement on the matter, call these countries out and use the tools at its disposal, like sanctions, to stop them. There is a wall of silence on this. This will have a direct effect on our industry going forward. This reckless behaviour in 2021 will have an effect on future quotas for Ireland because the stock will not take this level of overfishing. Everything they do in the north Atlantic has a direct effect on us in Ireland. What is ironic from our perspective is that the mackerel stock actually spawns in Irish waters, migrates north and then comes back annually, and yet we will have the smallest quota of all of the coastal states.

All of these states, by the way, catch mackerel in international waters. It is imperative that our Government works with its European colleagues to get these coastal states to catch only 10% of the quota in international waters because that is where they are catching all of this quota. They are not catching any mackerel this year in their own waters but they are catching hundreds of thousands of tonnes of the stock and putting it at risk, which will have a direct effect on our industry on the back of Brexit.

Chairman

I thank Mr. Doherty and call Deputy Mac Lochlainn.

Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn

The submissions make for very sober reading. My view of the task force report, which advocates reducing our fishing fleet over a certain size even further, down to only a percentage of what it was in 2006, is that we have waved the white flag of surrender in relation to our interests. The submission from the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation draws our attention to the stock book, a very voluminous document. The data, which I have seen myself, indicate we have 15% of the fish in our own waters under the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP. I read out some of the percentages we get in certain areas. There is one body of water where we have 29% of it but we have percentages of species ranging from 3% up to around 6%. The French have less in that particular area but they have percentages ranging from 40% to 60% of the allocation. That is the context.

The point has been made about mackerel and the failure of the EU to stand up to those countries that are clearly defying all of the international rules around sustainability, total allowable catches, TACs, and quotas. The difficulty in all of this, which is heartbreaking, is that some of the producer organisations felt they had a gun to their head. They knew there were people who would not be able to sustain a future and they took the opportunity to decommission. That is what this was - a gun was put to their head. There was no sustainable future and there was no fight from the Government. The Government did not even try. As I said, the Government did not even stand outside the Berlaymont and speak over the heads of the ministers and officials who refuse to do what is right. It did not try to speak to the ordinary, decent people in Spain, Belgium, France, Holland and so on, and ask them if they would tolerate a situation where 85% of the fish in their own waters, a precious natural resource, would be given away.

With this precious natural resource, 85% will be handed away. Worse still, such a high percentage of boats would be decommissioned that those communities would be devastated again and again. The white flag is being flown.

The difficulty for producer organisations which signed up to the task force is that they are dealing with people whose lives have been destroyed. They had a gun to their head and we should call it what it was. They had to do a deal for them. I appreciate that this was unbelievable pressure. I understand why the body from the south and west did not sign up to it and I have sympathy for those who did. This is an absolute tragedy and we should not dress it up as anything else.

We are being forced to decommission such a high percentage of our fleet while French and Belgian governments are investing in strengthening their fleets because of the abundance of stock they have under the Common Fisheries Policy. I just do not see the strategy. I can see the unification of the fishing industry and the protests in Cork and Dublin were good for the heart. I appeal to all of the groups here today to stay united. Of course, they have differences and there are matters of division but they should stay united to challenge the injustice of what we were given under the Common Fisheries Policy.

Mr. Doherty rightly asked the question regarding how President Macron can stand up for his French fishermen, challenging, as he did, the UK Government recently. Why do other countries assert their rights, even aggressively at times in the case of Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland when it comes to mackerel? Why do we find ourselves in this position? I know all this commentary from me is not a particular comfort but we must say it out loud. By signing up to this task force and approach, we have waved the white flag.

There clearly has not been burden sharing, which would have been eminently fair. It should have been expected that there be equal burden sharing of losses arising from the EU-UK trade agreement. There are suggestions but this must be first and foremost in the Minister's mind now. I want to get the views of the witnesses on this. When the Minister goes out to negotiate, do the witnesses agree that there must be a levelling-up approach? Whatever is agreed in the forthcoming quota allocation, I know from the submissions it will deal only with a fraction of what must be dealt with. Now is the moment for our Government to make a stand on the disgraceful failure to ensure burden sharing after the EU-UK trade agreement. It must demand that levelling up in these negotiations.

The problem has been put to me that because we have signed up to decommissioning using EU money, we may have damaged our own case. Burden sharing is an immediate responsibility and the witnesses mentioned the failure of the EU to stand up to states in which they are in a partnership. These include Iceland, the Faroes and Norway. There has been a failure to deal with the mackerel question. Ultimately, there is the question of the 15% figure. For Christ's sake, we are talking about fish in our own waters, and, in some cases, the proportion is even more derisory.

Will the groups stand united despite their differences on the task force? I am seeking to get their view. Will they demand that the Government does not allow the fact that EU money is being used to decommission more of our boats as part of a deal where we would not stand up and fight for our rights to fish? The IFPO submission talks about leaving aside opportunities while the decommissioning is proceeding. Some will take up the offer to voluntarily step aside but we should be able to reopen it for people to avail of that opportunity in the future. We should not absolutely wave the white flag, take those vessels out of the fleet and never allow people to go back at it again. What is the point of fighting for additional quota and our fair share of the fish in our waters if we cannot go back to the question of vessels in our fleet and some strategy on the updating and reinvestment for that fleet?

I appreciate that all the witnesses are at this a long time. They are weary and have heard this all before. At some point this must change and the dam must break and the water of freedom and righteousness should flow through. What is happening to our country? I want to get the ideas from the witnesses about what they want from the Taoiseach and the Minister responsible for the marine in these upcoming negotiations and going into next year. What change in approach do they need to see? How are we going to stand up for the rights we have absolutely been screwed over on for so long?

Chairman

The Deputy has put a question to the four chief executive officers. I will reverse the order I used on the previous occasion so we will start with Mr. Lynch.

Mr. John Lynch

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn. On the design of decommissioning, it is the policy of the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation not to have any decommissioning. We did not support it on the previous two occasions and we do not support it this time. However, people on the ground are short of quota and the availability of fishing opportunity. They do not see a way out and they are asking that we would at least negotiate a price. We are not altogether happy with the formulation or the discounts and we are not happy that premiums were not offered for ring-fenced sectors and vessels with exclusive fishing rights. There was no premium offered.

We are also not happy with the tie-up scheme money possibly being deducted from the decommissioning money next year, when decommissioning is to be paid. The tie-up scheme was to help alleviate the issues for 2021 and it is proposed that this be deducted from the decommissioning scheme if people take it up, in 2022.

We are absolutely not in favour of decommissioning and would go to any lengths to stop it. The only reason we got involved with negotiating the price of decommissioning was that it is a voluntary scheme. As people have rightly pointed out at this meeting, the figures do not add up. It is €63 million and 8,000 gross tonnes and it does add up with the €12,000 top-up premium that has been offered. Even offering €10,000, it does not add up. We are definitely not happy with it but we were on the task force and we got involved with designing the scheme because people on the ground would like to take it. Having said that, we remain opposed to decommissioning in the Irish fleet. It is our objective to get a fairer share of those quotas that the Deputy mentioned.

The Deputy spoke about unity among the organisations. The four organisations represented at this meeting work very well together. As the Deputy said, we do not agree on absolutely every matter, although we respect each other's individuality. From time to time, we make different points but overall we support each other and back each other up at meetings. Ultimately, we all have the same objective, which is to get the best deal possible for the Irish fishing industry. We will work as hard as we can to get there.

Mr. Patrick Murphy

I am thankful again for the opportunity to speak. I had a good opportunity at the start and I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn for his questions. I will follow up where Mr. Lynch left off. Another producer organisation was recently formed and we also work with processors, including the Irish Fish Processors and Exporters Association and its new chief executive, Mr. Brendan Byrne.

I do not want to leave out the aquaculture sector and the fisheries local action groups, FLAGS. When we are on the task force, yes, we definitely work together. We started off with a figure of 6,500 for GT. Can you imagine? I am sorry for laughing, but that is comical because we knew that the reductions were coming. Deputy Mac Lochlainn asked how we can do things and what the positive things we can do are. We use the tools that are there for our country. There is the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, STECF. Like the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, ICES, the STECF also gives reports and has to do evaluations on the fleets and the performance of the fleets across Europe. As I pointed out, the figures have now changed and, unfortunately, they come very late, so it might be a year or two before we can look at what is happening. It is the same with Covid. We have to move forward in time. We cannot wait.

Yesterday, we were at a committee meeting on the funding for the fisheries and aquaculture and for monitoring and our control agencies. We were told there could be another infringement opened against Ireland and more money deducted from our funds because of issues with the landing obligation. We do not want to move away from what we are talking about, but there are more complications there. We have been before the committee about this before. We lost the right to send our fish to a factory to be weighed. We had to do it on the pier and take the ice off it. There is a lot against our industry but there are definitely mechanisms there for it. There is the Fish Database of European Streams, FIDES, which shows the record of what each country catches in the various quotas throughout the year. If we had access to those data in real time, we could see the fishing patterns of the different countries and we might be able to arrange swaps better with the countries that have more quota that they could not use or carry forward to the next year. We could talk to them about that and see if we could get more of that fish under the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy. One of the pillars of the Common Fisheries Policy is that there are coastal communities that depend on the industry. This is our resource, as Deputy Mac Lochlainn pointed out.

Of the pie we get to take from, we have 15%. I keep putting forward this analogy. Can the committee imagine if we started at zero and the European fleet went to the shores of Africa and came back to Europe and the fleet said it had 85% of the fishing rights and that all the African people were left with was 15% because now they can sell the fish in the European market? There would be a human cry heard across the globe, but it seems to be okay for the Irish people. It is these simple facts that our Taoiseach should take to Ursula von der Leyen and the rest. He should point them out to them and use the examples that are there.

As for the Irish Sea herring, the clue is in the name: the Irish Sea. We are left with 1% of that fishery and the UK has 99%. If any European can stand over the argument that the latter is right and just, they should sit before me and tell it to my face because I do not agree with them at all. I keep saying this: we are told we have to lose on a third decommissioning scheme one third of our fleet. The figures in my presentation were designed and drafted not by me but by scientists within the Marine Institute. I am only copying their work so I am taking that what they have done is correct. We had hundreds of boats in our fleet not so long ago, in 2006, not even halfway through the Common Fisheries Policy, and we are going to be told that if they are successful with this decommissioning scheme, we will be down to a third. That is a third, a third and a third from 2006. I ask the committee to look at the figures. When we go to our Taoiseach and speak to our Minister tomorrow, the committee should tell him it has looked at the figures. The €39 million set out in the task force report that will come back into the fisheries will not make up the shortfall. What will we do? Do we go back to Europe again and look for a fourth decommissioning scheme? We cannot make fish appear from nowhere. The fish are there; we need the quota. It is all about quota to be able to keep our coastal communities going. We have the skill set. We brought the boats to Dublin peacefully. We did so because we just wanted to show the Irish people the condition of the modern fleet we have built up and the families who have worked and risked their lives going out in weather such as has been seen in recent days to earn a living to pay for these boats. The committee has seen the pictures I have sent of two of our members who have spent hundreds of thousands in recent years on boats that are over 30 years of age to keep them compliant with the code of practice so the men can go out and catch fish and compete with the foreign fleets visiting our shores. We are being told to get rid of one in every three. That is stark.

Mr. John Ward

I thank Deputy Mac Lochlainn for his contribution. I find it difficult to disagree with anything he said. Ours was one of the producer organisations, POs, which stated that it supported the decommissioning scheme. We supported the scheme on the basis that we had members within our organisation who have become so disillusioned with what is happening and our fishing industry that they have lost all confidence and they think it is time to get out of it. The analysis that was done at the task force was provided by BIM, which drew up the proposals as to how many vessels needed to be taken out of the fleet. The figures that were produced to us came from both the Department and BIM. We did not put forward the figures for what should be paid for GT. We have no argument that it should be much more than what was agreed at the task force, but it was made very clear to us by the officials from the Department that if we were to go out looking for crazy figures for GT, we would not get a decommissioning scheme. It would not be approved on the levels that were being proposed by the industry. We were between a rock and a hard place and we settled. There are lots of rules that are there that we do not necessarily agree with, as was articulated by my colleague, Mr. Lynch, in particular the idea that if the owner of a vessel is taking money for the tie-up scheme in 2021 and if he takes decommissioning in 2022, he has to pay it back. This is an EU rule as part of another EU scheme, but there is nothing in the TCA compensation fund that says that this rule should apply for decommissioning. However, our Department is insisting that it should be the rule. I will confirm that we in the POs always work much more closely with our colleagues in the other POs than many people feel is the case. As Mr. Ward said, we respect our individual positions on various issues but we do our damnedest to do the best we can for our members.

Mr. Seán O'Donoghue

I will address Deputy Mac Lochlainn's questions. The easiest one is the one about unity. I think there is considerable unity with the POs and the other organisations that are not here today. This has been built with 20 others in the field. I can understand Deputy Mac Lochlainn's comments about raising the white flag, but I can tell him that there is absolutely no way we, as a PO, will accept that this is raising the white flag. He rightly asked what needs to be done at the forthcoming council. The task force is not just about decommissioning; there are 16 other schemes there. The number one priority that was identified by the task force was burden sharing. There are 13 different recommendations from the task force that deal with burden sharing.

The reason this is so important is because Ireland has been disproportionately hit by Brexit. It is not just the analysis that we have done exhaustively on this. I am glad to tell the committee that the Commission’s scientific body, referred to by Mr. Murphy in terms of fleets, the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, produced a report about six weeks ago that confirmed the figures we have been preaching from the rooftops about since it happened on Christmas Eve which is, when one considers the real quota uptake, the effect on Ireland is that we are taking a 40% hit. All the others are taking 60%. There is an opportunity at the Council to start the internal process on burden sharing. There is also the external process at the coastal states and next year is an important year for that.

The third element of this is the CFP review. I wish to put on the record that everybody on this call was fully behind the burden sharing. The easiest thing of all for the Ministers, the Government and the Department to do is to kick the can down the road and say that it will be part of the CFP. There is absolutely no way that we will accept that. The burden sharing has to be addressed here and now and over the transition period of the Brexit adjustment reserve fund, BAR. We have been told there have been other Councils that it has come up in. Starting in December, there will be an opportunity to start doing something that could affect 2022. We need to put a huge effort into the CFP review but, with the best will in the world, one is talking about two years hence. We are not prepared to wait for that.

It is fair to say that all the organisations, very reluctantly, came to the table on decommissioning. I know the figures do not stack up here but, as far as I am concerned, if there is to be a voluntary decommissioning scheme, which the task force recommended and we were all party to that, the minimum payment has to be 12,000 tonnes. What if the figure does not add up? The task force figure is €423 million. Ireland has received more than €1 billion so I see no problem in getting additional funds if need be. One issue a number of people have mentioned is that it is not right that some people who get temporary cessation money could be taken off decommissioning money. I know Mr. Ward mentioned it. That is part of the Commission’s guidelines. I checked the BAR regulations that were recently published, and it does not actually require that. The regulations specifically state that it should not have to be repaid. That has to be addressed.

Deputy Martin Browne

I welcome the guests. A lot has been said but, at the end of the day, Ireland has been hardest hit by the quota transfers to the UK and contributes approximately €43 million of the total estimated €199 million. That amounts to a 15% reduction compared with the overall value of the 2020 Irish quotas, and is proportionally more than the other EU member states.

The task force was established to address the implications arising from the EU-UK trade deal but under decommissioning alone, we will lose one third of the fleet again. At what stage will it stop before we have nothing at all or no fleet left? In recent days, we have seen what these fleets and fishermen have to go through to make a living. I do not think anyone of us would like to see their livelihoods taken away when they have to go out in those conditions. With a review of the Common Fisheries Policy planned for next year, I imagine the industry wants the Government to fight and stand up for it. That is the least people expect and deserve when it comes to going to Europe and fighting for a better deal for our fishing fleet.

The term “burden sharing”, which has come up in the meeting, indicates that by having arrived at this point the industry has been significantly let down. As Mr. Ward said, the fleet is disillusioned, and one could not blame them when one hears what is going on. This is especially the case, and must be taken into account, in the context of what the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation said in its opening statement about the disproportionate cost to Ireland in the transfer of quotas to the UK under the TCA, which it noted is 40% of the entire cost of the EU quota transfers when one considers the catches. Will the witnesses tell us how they are pursuing this and what advice they have for the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and, indeed, the whole-of-government approach that was referred to? Have there been encouraging signs from member states that matter in this regard?

I refer to the Irish Fish Producers Organisation. I said earlier that this is a deeply uncomfortable matter to be talking about. What is essentially under discussion today is how we can mitigate the impacts of the fish quota share reductions, which in my view is deeply unjust and is a blot on the EU’s attitude towards the Irish fishing fleet. There is a big question to be asked of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in how we have arrived at this situation in which drastic measures such as these are even being asked of the sector. I hope a hard stance will be taken by the Department in the review of the Common Fisheries Policy.

I wish to stay on the issue of decommissioning for now. In what has been said in relation to decommissioning and looking forward to future generations, Mr. Ward said that he would like to see the Department bank some of the fishing capacity that would be given up. He also said that the Department is not interested in this proposal, which I find hard to swallow. Will he tell the committee of the mechanics of that proposal and what communication he had with the Department on the matter? Will he say a few words on the outlook of fishing for future generations and younger people coming into the industry, who were referred to earlier?

Chairman

I will go back to the chief executives. They have a good opportunity to make their points. I ask that they stick to the questions Deputy Martin Browne has asked. I call Mr. O’Donoghue first.

Mr. Seán O'Donoghue

I will address Deputy Martin Browne’s first question on what we can do in terms of this disproportionate cost. I will not repeat what I have already said. A key opportunity is coming up next Sunday and Monday to get burden sharing on the agenda. Maybe we will not achieve everything we want to achieve at this Council meeting, but I am confident there is a process we could start and get going. Obviously, other member states have to come on board but there are ways and means of doing that. It cannot wait for the CFP review because, with the best will in the world, that is kicking the can down the road and not addressing what has happened, and should not have happened, in that Ireland has taken a disproportionate hit with costs. We produced the figures that have now been verified by the Commission’s technical and scientific body. This is not just coming from us. There is now a document published on it.

On decommissioning, I have already said that, reluctantly, everybody came to the table on this. There are people out there who are, as Mr. Ward rightly put it, totally disillusioned.

People will need some avenue to be able to get out of the industry without ending up in bankruptcy. This is why we all came to the table, reluctantly, on the decommissioning. The levels have to be right. A question was asked about a tonnage bank. With regard to off-register tonnage, there needs to be provision for people who want to renew their boats, whether they be second hand or new. Off-register tonnage is one way of looking at this. Perhaps rather than decommissioning all of it, which is what the Department is planning to do, a certain portion should be kept. If we get our burden sharing, and as far as I am concerned it is not if but when we will get burden sharing, and there is a further review of the CFP we will need to be able to modernise our vessels. We will need to have a certain amount of tonnage banked to do this. This was discussed by the task force but no concrete proposals was put forward other than recognition by everybody that all of the off-register tonnage could not be decommissioned and then have nothing to allow for new vessels or modernisation of vessels.

Mr. John Ward

I thank Deputy Browne. With regard to leaving the door open for young people to come back into the fishing industry, it will be impossible for people to come into the industry for the first time unless they have a lot more than the bank of mum and dad behind them to allow them to buy their way into it. We were not the only people who put forward a tonnage bank at the task force. As far as I remember, the idea was first mooted by the fishing co-operatives in Ireland. We were told EU funding and the trade and co-operation agreement scheme could not be used for it, and that the demands on the national Exchequer were such that the Department felt it would never be able to bring such a scheme forward. The other points raised have been adequately covered by my colleague and there is no need for me to add anything.

Mr. Patrick Murphy

I thank the Deputy for his questions which are very appropriate. He is speaking about the future of our industry and this is what we are here to discuss. My colleagues have pointed out we are united on many of the points being raised today. Mr. O'Donoghue is correct that the producer organisations accepted the reality that there would be some sort of decommissioning scheme. The Irish South and West Fish Producer's Organisation did not sign up to the terms and conditions, which were presented to us less than 24 hours before we were to decide whether or not we agreed. My directors were online and said the south and west producers would not sign up to them and I was glad they did not do so. They are totally inadequate as we have seen and as we have pointed out here today.

I agree with what Mr. O'Donoghue has said. Here is the agreement that everyone is looking for. The trade and co-operation agreement Brexit adjustment reserve fund was brought to Ireland because it was recognised in Europe, for the first time in the history of the European Union, that Ireland is the most disproportionately affected of all countries. How do we know this? The proof is in front of us. We got one fifth of the entire Brexit adjustment reserve fund. One of the smallest countries in Europe got one fifth of it. Out of €5 billion we got €1.1 billion. It was also acknowledged that the most disproportionately affected industry, where we will see people losing their jobs and livelihoods, is the fishing industry. Absolutely we should get the proper funding for people who have fished all their lives, who are in families who have done so for generation after generation and who, unfortunately, as my colleague Mr. Ward has clearly pointed out, are disillusioned. I would strengthen this word. I would say they have given up all hope. Morale is on the floor. This is why we took the boats to Dublin and Cork. Our fishers have given up. Imagine an entire industry on its knees not just from this but because of Covid, bad weather and regulations. They are being put in an impossible situation. The figures state they cannot survive. The only way for some was to take decommissioning.

To add insult to injury, we are forcing people out of the industry and devaluing their assets. It makes no sense for us to allow this to happen. This is why we hope the committee will speak on our behalf to the Minister and the Taoiseach. This is where it needs to go, as was pointed out by my colleagues. The biggest powerhouses in Europe have no problem standing up for fishers. We have seen President Macron stand up. The French people are willing to turn off the power to the English people. They are willing to cut off food supplies to the English people to get across their point. We need the same level of determination from the people who represent us at the highest level in Europe, as Mr. O'Donoghue has said. We are not waiting two years. We want this now. We want our country to go to Europe and tell people these are the facts, that they agree with the facts and ask them to do something about it. We need parity in our industry throughout Europe. We united at the start to get this parity. Now we have been cut adrift. This has to be addressed by our Taoiseach, our Minister and our Minister for Foreign Affairs. If it is not then we are wasting our time. We will keep saying the same thing to the committee but we need it to carry this message for us. I thank the committee and I thank Deputy Brown for highlighting the fact it will be virtually impossible for young people to come into the industry because there will not be an industry there for them.

Mr. John Lynch

I thank Deputy Browne for his questions and comments. I will begin with burden sharing, which was covered very well by Mr. O'Donoghue. We absolutely need the Taoiseach, the Minister and the Government as a whole to push to have this burden sharing in Europe. There is a 40% loss to Ireland in the trade and co-operation agreement. This needs to be readjusted to a proper share. We respect that every processor state would lose something but out of eight states Ireland should not have taken 40% of the burden.

Another way we are disadvantaged because of Brexit is the Hague preferences. This is complicated. We have to apply for Hague preferences every year. When some of the quotas are reduced Ireland gets a small percentage of an increase from other states because the fishing territory lies around the coast of Ireland. Unfortunately, most of the Hague preferences we received came from the UK. With the UK no longer a member of the European Union the Hague preferences are not as advantageous to Ireland as they were in the past. Some compensation for our small share was achieved through the Hague preferences but since the UK left this is no longer the case as we used to get most of the preference from it.

With regard to decommissioning, as I said earlier to Deputy Mac Lochlainn, the decommissioning scheme being brought in is voluntary. We believe the premium being paid per tonne should be the full €12,000.

We do not agree with the discounts, particularly the discount on the age at investment. We do not and cannot agree with that.

The off-register tonnage is an absolute requirement and the fleet must have off-register tonnage to survive. Some of the other POs at the task force, which we supported, looked for a tonnage bank paid for by the State. John Ward has already noted that European funds cannot be used to store tonnage, so if we were to have a national tonnage bank, it would have to be from the national Exchequer. We believe this would be worthwhile and that we could use it again in the future, when we get burden sharing and get a fairer share of quotas.

Off-register tonnage is needed for the future development of the fleet. Any time a vessel is changed or even if an engine is changed inside a vessel, kilowatts and tonnage are altered so, up and down, we need tonnage and we need off-register capacity to allow for this. We also need it for the building of new vessels. When new vessels are being built at the moment, for a similar type of vessel the tonnage is way higher because of the new regulations in shipbuilding. Given the rules being applied for safety reasons by the Marine Survey Office in the Department of Transport as regards the building of fishing vessels, the vessel requires a lot more tonnage for the same lame length of vessel when compared to the previous position. For that reason, we need off-register tonnage.

I will leave it at that because all of the items have been well covered by the other speakers.

Deputy Michael Ring

I welcome the four CEOs. To be fair to the four of them, they are all on the one hymn sheet, which is very important. I know it is four organisations but it is good to see they all have the one agenda.

I want to make a few points. Mr. Murphy spoke about fishermen and the dangers and difficulty of the job. I come from north Mayo and there are a lot of fishing people there. It is a very difficult life, a hard life, and any money they earn is earned very hard. I have to say they did not get protection from previous Governments in respect of their quotas, particularly given what they do for our food stock in the world. They have never got that respect. Brexit has created a big problem. When I was in Cabinet, this was one of the issues that was left until last because those involved knew that the whole fishing industry was going to be a difficult issue in light of the situation with fishing quotas, decommissioning and everything else.

The task force was set up to assist fishermen and to help to identify the problems. When a task force is set up, it is set up because there is already a problem. There is already a problem with the industry, there is already a problem with jobs being lost and there is already a problem with people leaving the industry.

There are two things that worry me in regard to fishing and agriculture. We have people who do not want the production of cattle in this country and they do not want to produce food. We have people who do not want fishermen to fish. Then, we have a problem where boats are going to be coming in from all over Europe. Do we have the protection we need from the Government and from whatever services are there in order to protect the fishing rights we have?

Deputy Mac Lochlainn was correct that this has been talked about for a long time. This industry has gone through a very difficult time and it was sacrificed for other industries in the past. The time has come to take care of this industry and the few people we have left in it, as I know from my county. It is a very difficult situation. Like any family business or for anyone involved in any industry, they would love to see some of their family members continuing on in it and being able to make a living in it. That is not happening because sons and daughters of the people who are in this industry see how hard their parents have worked, see how difficult this life is and see the way those involved have been treated by Europe and the Government.

The time has come. I will be supporting the Minister but I will be pointing out to him that we need to be very strong. If you do not ask, you are not going to get. The Minister has to make sure that he gets out there and puts the pressure on Europe this time. He needs to say that this industry is on its knees and it needs its quota.

I do not like talking about decommissioning, which is like redundancy when jobs are lost. The witnesses are correct and the four of them have been very honest. It is a scheme that has been put there to help people who no longer want to be in the industry because they cannot make a living out of it. Just as when someone is taken out of any job, we have to give them a decent payment if they are being decommissioned or taken out of work. They should not be fighting over a few thousand euro in respect of tonnage and they should be given it gladly. If Europe wants to get rid of quota and wants to get rid of fishermen, it should be paying them.

What I will be saying to the Minister tomorrow is that we have to be strong in these talks. This is the first time we have had Brexit as a background to the negotiations. I hope the rest of Europe will be generous to the Irish fishermen because the Irish fishermen were generous to the rest of Europe in the past. I want to offer the four POs my support and I hope the Minister and the Government do the same. The witnesses are right. This is not just about the Taoiseach, the Minister with responsibility for the marine or the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Government as a whole has to be out there this time, fighting in Europe for our industry, which is on its knees.

Chairman

Thank you. I do not think there was a question from Deputy Ring. He mostly made comments. Given that Senator O’Donovan is attending the Seanad for a vote, I will make a comment before he returns. As Deputy Ring said, we will be bringing these points very forcefully to the Minister tomorrow. I am from an inland county but I can see that the witnesses have made their points extremely well. The four organisations have different perspectives on the issues but, in my view, they have put on a very unified front as to what needs to be done on Sunday and Monday. We will have the Minister before us tomorrow evening. I and other members will be very forcefully reinforcing what has been said to us this evening by the representatives of the fishing organisations, and we will very much reiterate what has been said. It is a crucial weekend for the fishing industry. Quotas are very hard to live with but when they are quotas of the reduced dimension that Irish fishermen have been forced to go on, it is very clear it will make their industry completely unviable.

The secretary has indicated that Mr. Murphy wants to come in. As Senator O'Donovan is now available, however, I will call on him to speak first.

Senator Denis O'Donovan

I do not wish to rehash everything that has been said. My view is that decommissioning is a last resort but, unfortunately, in some instances we have to go down that road. I live in a place called Schull, which is quite close to where Deputy Michael Collins is from. I am probably the oldest around here. I remember a day when there were probably ten trawlers fishing out of Schull and there is now one small one left there. Coastal communities, whether in the Beara Peninsula or, as Patrick Murphy said, at places like Union Hall and Baltimore, have seen the signs. Decommissioning, in one sense, might be an easy buck for some people who want to get out of it but the damage to the coastal communities is very real and substantial. The compensation package I have looked at and studied, in simple terms, is not adequate and is not enough. It is the end of an era for families and for communities, and I believe that should be seriously looked at.

The area of quotas under the Common Fisheries Policy, going back historically to 1973, has been an issue. I was elected a councillor in Cork in 1985 and I worked with others to set up a coastal management committee. Seán O'Donoghue and myself go back a long way. What I am hearing today from the POs is something similar, except it is more sophisticated now. Unfortunately, the fishing industry has contracted. I hate to see more damage done to the fishing communities around the country. I must put my hand up on some of the representations I made. I always spoke up for fishermen but we did not have the success that I would like to have seen over the years. We are now at a crisis point and, unfortunately, unless we put up a brave fight in Europe, whether it be the Taoiseach or the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, as somebody said, we are showing the white flag or, to use another term or train of thought, we are throwing in the towel.

That is what I wanted to say. I have listened to many POs. I heard most of it before I had to run for the vote. I do not want to delay the meeting further. It was informative and I have no doubt that the POs will lobby together on this issue. I do not doubt that and I wish them success. Hopefully, what they are saying will not fall on deaf ears.

Mr. Patrick Murphy

I thank Deputy Ring and Senator O’Donovan for their comments, which are welcome. It is greatly received that they understand what is here. To try to be helpful, I will explain our viewpoint and I hope my colleagues would agree with me on this. Brexit was an extraordinary event. Nobody believed that it was going to happen. Even when it did happen, people believed that there was going to be another referendum and that they would overturn it. The rule book, as far as we saw it, had to be redesigned. The previous rules that had been set out for a decommissioning scheme were set up for a completely different purpose. It is no longer relevant to us. That is what need to bring to our Minister.

To assure the committee, we raised this with the EU Commissioner when he visited Killybegs. He agreed with us. He said that the Brexit adjustment reserve, BAR, funding was there to be flexible. Therefore, as my colleague, Mr. Ward, pointed out, we felt that we were getting miscommunication and confusing messages whereby on the one hand, we were told that this is the way that it has to be written. We kept pointing out that Brexit is an extraordinary event. It is accepted that it is an extraordinary event. It is accepted that we suffered the greatest burden. Surely, on the basis of that, even if we do all totally and utterly hate the idea of decommissioning, we are not going to envisage even more pain for these families. They might have entered the industry, as I said, in the last number of years, paying €15,000 per gross tonnage. There is going to be a shortfall there. I know that my colleagues are saying that the ones that want to go out might have their boats bought and paid for. They just want to leave the industry. They are just distraught by it. We understand the complications of that. We have to take cognisance of the way the scheme and the terms and conditions - which we disagreed with - are set out. They are not appropriate. They do not address the issue or the crisis that we are in at the moment. There is not enough money there. It is not high enough. We are not asking for people to make millionaires out of themselves. We just want their debts covered and for them to leave with some dignity. I point out to the committee that a fisherman came up the stairs to my office. He had been in the job for 30 years. His father had been a fisherman for 50 years. They told me that if they left the industry, and if they had €70,000 each leaving the industry after that amount of time, they would be happy. This is the stark reality that we are at. They will not get that. They will be in debt with the figures that are presented to them. Even if this happens to only one fisherman, it is a wrong.

We have to tell our Minister that this is an extraordinary event. Europe agrees with us. The Commissioner agrees with us. We need to rewrite the rule book. We saw during our time in the task force that the French got much further leeway in their actions under the Brexit adjustment reserve than we were told we were allowed. This is a reality. For us, it is a necessary evil, as Mr. Ward pointed out. Please do not make it worse for our people who have given their lives to this industry. At the end of it, they are disillusioned. Then they will get a second kicking, but not from Europe. If Ireland does this, it will be us doing it to our own people. We have to make sure that they are properly compensated for the lives that they have given to this industry. I thank the Chair and Deputy Ring.

Mr. Seán O'Donoghue

I thank the Chair for letting me back in. I will briefly make some points as we are coming to the end of the meeting. I want to highlight two or three key points. I know we have dispersed but it is worth reiterating them again. I cannot overemphasise that the burden sharing should be addressed at the forthcoming December Council. It should also be addressed by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney. We cannot be fobbed off by saying “Ah, we will wait for the Common Fisheries Policy review”. That is not an adequate answer. We need to do that.

I fully agree with Mr. Murphy on decommissioning. As far as I am concerned, the modalities and the criteria of the decommissioning have not been decided yet. This was addressed by all the organisations here today. We need to make sure that when the final scheme comes out and gets state aid approval, that it has addressed issues. There is nothing under the BAR funding regulation that I can see that stops that from being done.

We have not mentioned one other thing about the BAR funding. Mr. Murphy is quite right that when Commissioner Sinkevičius was in Killybegs, he indicated to us that there would be maximum flexibility on the BAR funding. One of the areas, which would obviously make direct sense because we are only talking about a three-year period, is that there is direct losses compensation for the fish loss. This is being pursued by a number of member states. As I understand it, the Commission is amenable to looking at that. The task force made recommendations of €423 million. As far as I am concerned, if that figure ends up to be €600 million, then so be it, because we are the ones who were affected under the scheme.

The final thing I want to say is that because we are facing into this Council, which has lost its clout because of the EU-UK bilateral agreement I am concerned that when we come to the midnight time again - as always happens with these Councils - it will be a fait accompli. I just will take one stock as an example, which is haddock in the north west. Scientists tell us that this is in a healthy state. We are expecting a 125% increase. Because of these bilateral negotiations, as I see it, we will end up with just a 5%. I am concerned that the whole role that the Council had on setting tax and quotas for the following year is no longer what it is. We have no influence whatsoever in relation to this. This will be a fait accompli and a rubber-stamping exercise.

Chairman

On behalf of the committee, I wish to thank representatives from the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation, the Irish Fish Producers Organisation, the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation and the Irish South and East Fish Producers Organisation for briefing us today on their concerns regarding quotas and decommissioning. The joint committee will meet the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy McConalogue, tomorrow on the topic of the upcoming EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council, AGRIFISH, meeting to set fish quotas. We will raise their concerns with the Minister.

This meeting is now adjourned. The next public meeting of the joint committee will be held tomorrow, Thursday, 9 December. That will be the meeting with the Minister on these hugely important issues for the fishing industry. I thank the secretariat and the witnesses. The meeting is now adjourned.

The joint committee adjourned at 7.19 p.m. until 5.30 p.m. on Thursday, 9 December 2021.