1 Dec 2020, 09:29
The Joint Committee on Agriculture and the Marine will meet today, Tuesday, when the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue TD, appears from 1.30pm to discuss fisheries ahead of an EU meeting.
Today’s meeting in Committee Room 4, watch here, will occur in advance of the EU Council of Ministers meeting on December 15/16 where the 2021 quotas will be negotiated. The Department is conducting a Sustainability Impact Assessment (SIA) before fisheries negotiations commence.
In addition the Committee will also be questioning the minister about EU Legislative Proposal COM(2020) 668 , proposal for a Council Regulation fixing for 2021, the fishing opportunities for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks, applicable in Union waters and, for Union fishing vessels, in certain non-Union waters, as part of their further scrutiny of the proposal.
Ahead of the meeting, Chair Jackie Cahill, TD, said: “With less than a month to go until the UK leaves the European Union, and ahead of the EU Council of Ministers meeting in two weeks’ time, and with negotiations ongoing regarding Brexit and fisheries a topic of debate the appearance of the Minister is something which the Committee welcomes. The quotas much like Brexit negotiations will impact greatly upon communities and livelihoods across the country, and we look forward to Tuesday’s engagement.”
For more information about the work of the Committee on Agriculture and the Marine, see the Committee webpage