Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 January 2021
1173. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will provide the percentage of the EU catch of fish allocated to Ireland by way of quota or otherwise in 2020, in tabular form; the percentage that will now be available to Ireland in 2021, after Brexit; the estimated volume and value in each case; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1563/21]
View answerThe EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement will, unfortunately, have a negative impact on our fishing industry. However, this impact would have been far greater had the Barnier Task Force agreed to UK demands or had we been in a no-deal scenario which would have seen all EU vessels barred from UK waters and subsequent displacement into Ireland's fishing zone.
This week, I published a Preliminary Analysis of Transfers of Quota Shares from Ireland / EU to the UK under the EU/UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement on the gov.ie website which details the level of quota transfers for Ireland across the different stocks. This compares the quota shares allocated to Ireland in 2020 and the corresponding new quota shares for 2021-2016. The Deputy will see from this document that reductions in the Annexes to the Agreement are graduated over the 5.5 year period of reciprocal access, but the largest part of the reduction, 60%, is between 2020 and 2021.
