As I outlined previously in response to the Deputy's question on Tuesday, 23 March 2004, the new landing times for pelagic fish have been imposed because of more stringent monitoring controls and weighing procedures recently introduced by the European Commission in relation to the mackerel, horse mackerel and north-west herring fisheries. These new rules are designed to facilitate effective control of pelagic fisheries. Such control is a key element in fisheries management policy and enables the sustainable management and development of the fisheries concerned. This is an entirely valid policy objective and I fully support it.
In implementing the new EU procedures, my Department has acceded to industry requests to allow landings at a variety of ports around the coast. The immediate impact of that decision was that some restrictions had to be placed on permitted landing time at the range of permitted ports. The permitted times for landing are between 8 a.m. and midnight on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends and public holidays. This represents fairly comprehensive coverage given the constraints on staffing resources. While a 24 hour coverage would be an ideal situation, there are certain organisational and resource realities that my Department has had to consider. The current rate of coverage is a reasonable response in the prevailing circumstances.
I and my Department officials continue to work closely with the industry in the implementation of these new requirements. We have worked together in recent months to put in place certain transitional arrangements which are both effective in control terms and also satisfy the legitimate requirement of both fishermen and processors to maintain the quality of catches. This process will continue and I am confident that practical problems can be resolved in a mutually satisfactory manner. In this context, I have not ruled out a possible extension to the existing permitted hours of landing going forward provided that a clear justification exists and that sufficient resources are available to support any such changes.
The supply of fish to fish processing plants has always been subject to the influence of many factors, including weather, the location of where the fish is being caught and the prices paid at different ports. A significant proportion of the catches in the spring pelagic fisheries have normally been landed abroad. The choice of where fish is landed, whether into ports within Ireland or elsewhere, cannot be directed by me and is a matter solely for the individual fishing skippers. Under the current arrangements the maximum possible waiting period in Irish ports of up to eight hours during a weekday and up to 14 hours during a weekend is substantially less than the time that is often spent by these vessels sailing to alternative landing ports outside Ireland. The choice of some skippers to land some pelagic catches abroad is not determined by the limited restrictions on night time landings.
