The House will now hear two separate two minute statements from Deputy Deasy on matters appropriate to the Minister for the Marine.
Adjournment Debate. - Marine Matters.
First I will deal with the Celtic Sea herring fishery. Last year the fishery was not organised in a proper manner and as a result the quota was totally used up by fishermen fishing in the western end of the Celtic Sea, that is around the West-Cork and Kerry coast. The entire quota of hearing was caught in that region prior to Christmas 1990. Traditionally some of the herring would be caught in the western end of the fishery and some in the eastern end of the fishery, which is traditionally known as the Dunmore East herring fishery. In today's paper I saw that the Minister had obtained a quota for herring fishing in the Celtic Sea for the 1991-92 season of 15,000 tonnes of herring. I want to put down a market tonight that the quota should be split equally between the western and eastern segments of the Celtic Sea and that the quota should not be fished in its entirety by the fishermen working from the western segment as happened last year.
It actually cost the fishermen and business people of Dunmore East and districts approximately £1 million at the end of last year and at the beginning of this year and that is a lot of money for a small community to lose. I ask that the fisheries be properly managed. The fish move in an anti-clockwise direction so they will first hit the west Cork-Kerry coast and they should be given a chance to travel so that the fishermen in the Dunmore East fishery would be given a chance to fish and that the people who service that industry would have the chance of making a decent living.
The Deputy's concern arises, I assume from the recent newspaper reports relating to the Celtic Sea herring quota. I will outline the background to these reports. Ireland has consistently maintained that herring stocks in the Celtic Sea are considerably higher and can stand a higher level of exploitation than the annual total allowable catch and quota regulations will allow. Unfortunately, up to recently we have had little success in convincing the European Commission to increase the total allowable catch for this stock, in fact last year the total allowable catch was actually reduced in line with the ACFM and STCF recommendations.
However, following a further submission by Irish scientists, ACFM at their meeting in May reversed previous recommendations and proposed a substantial increase in the TAC for this species.
The Minister raised the matter at the Council of Fisheries Ministers' meeting in Brussels yesterday. As a result of his intervention the Commissioner for Fisheries, Vice-President Marin, has agreed to a significant increase, as Deputy Deasy said, in the TAC for the stock this season. The Minister expects the Commission to put forward a formal proposal in this regard very soon so that the increased quota will be available for the autumn fishery.
The Deputy spoke of the management of the fisheries. The Minister's objective in the management of the Celtic Sea herring fishery is to allocate the quotas available as evenly as possible over the main spawning season, with a view to maximising incomes and employment, as Deputy Deasy told the House, both for the fishermen and the processors. He is aware the Celtic Sea fishery can be divided broadly into two distinct elements from a spawning viewpoint. First, the western element, from Dingle to Cork Harbour, is an autumn fishery where the roe is suitable for commercial exploitation in the October to December period. The eastern element, from Cork Harbour to Dunmore East, is a winter-spring fishery where the roe is suitable for exploitation in the December and early New Year period. Each year the quota is divided between the winter-spring fishery and the autumn fishery to ensure that fishermen in the various constituent parts are able to catch an equitable portion of the quota.
This did not happen last year.
Before the 1991-92 fishery reopens next autumn, the Department, following full consultation with the industry, will have put in place a management regime designed to ensure that whatever quota is available is divided as evenly as possible between the eastern and western sectors. I feel that is what Deputy Deasy is anxious about.
I made the point that the fishery will have commenced before the Dáil resumes.
The House will now hear the second two-minute statement from Deputy Deasy.
The second item I want to raise involves the tonnages of Irish shipping which is allowed by the EC. I do not want to be unkind to the Minister of State because he is a very honourable individual, but a total botch was made in Brussels of the annual tonnage for Irish boats in the past 12 to 18 months. I have raised this at Question Time and answers were given by the Minister of State at the Department of the Marine who quite clearly did not know what he was talking about. I do not like to be offensive or unkind, but this is a disgrace.
There are anomalies, inequities and injustices all around the coast because of the mess that was made in Brussels allocating tonnage. People who have been fishing all their lives are not now allowed to go to sea. There are probably something like 400 to 500 fishermen who are deprived of making a living because of bureaucratic bungling. This fact is openly acknowledged by everybody in the industry. I believe it is acknowledged by senior people in the Department of the Marine, but nobody will admit that a serious mistake was made. The Council of Ministers of which the Minister is a member, is a body which should rectify the wrongs which have been done. I am asking here tonight that the message be sent to the Minister that he is expected to rectify the mistakes which have been made.
There are a number of cases in my constituency. One chap in a fishing village called Passage East has a boat which has been used for the past 70 years, and he is not now allowed to go out, fish and earn a living in that boat because he was not included on the register which was forwarded to Brussels last year. There are dozens of similar cases in my constituency in all the fishing villages around the coast, and there are 400 to 500 throughout the country.
I am asking merely that the Minister use his political wisdom, muscle, charm, bilingualism or trilingualism to ensure these people are given a right to earn a living on the sea, fishing.
First, since the question given to me is "To ask the Minister for the Marine the necessity for additional tonnage from the EC to enable more Irish fishing boats to be registered" I am not in a position to reply to some of the suggestions or allegations made by Deputy Deasy.
It is all the same thing.
I might have had a different reply if I had known the line the Deputy was going to take.
The Government's central objective for the fish catching sector in the medium term is to increase progressively and maximise the take-up of existing fish quotas and the catch of non-quota species. This objective is being pursued, inter alia, through the modernisation and restructuring of the fishing fleet to better match available fish stocks and to strengthen its long term viability and competitiveness.
However, as Deputy Deasy is no doubt aware, there are major constraints on fleet capacity arising from the European Community fishing fleet policy. That policy is designed to address the problem of the serious over-capacity that exists in the Community as a whole. In line with the current policy, as expressed through the Multi-Annual Guidance Programmes, 1987-91, member states are required to reduce their fleet capacities by 3 per cent below the 1984 level before the end of 1991. This requirement poses very real difficulties for a number of member states, including Ireland as Deputy Deasy has suggested, whose fleets had increased since 1984. In Ireland's case the cutback in capacity requires that the fleet be reduced to 43,941 gross registered tonnes by the end of 1991. To date, we have achieved the target of 49,000 tonnes set for the end of 1990. A substantial further reduction of about 6,000 tonnes is sought by the end of 1991.
These restrictions are not unique to Ireland. Similar restrictions apply to all member states. Moreover, there are links between the restrictions and other elements of policy, specifically the availability of substantial financial assistance for the fishing sector generally. Member states which fail to reduce the gross registered tonnage of their fleets will be handicapped in seeking EC financial aid from Structural Funds to modernise and refurbish their fleets.
EC fleet policy is currently being reevaluated on the basis of new multi-annual guidance programmes recently submitted by member states in respect of the period 1992-96. The methodology used in the programme submitted by Ireland was to (1) define coherent fleet categories, (2) relate the capacity of each fleet category to the actual and potential state of the stocks exploited by that category, (3) assess conservation and management constraints on each category and, most importantly, (4) on that basis set specific objectives and policies for individual fleet categories.
It is evident to the Minister, and he is supported in this by scientific advice, that there are unexploited fishing opportunities available to some of the fleet categories, in particular in the offshore demersal and crustacean sectors. These issues have been raised specifically in the Irish multi-annual guidance programme.
I can assure Deputy Deasy that the Minister is exploring all possibilities of introducing the necessary vessels to the Irish fleet to exploit these opportunities not only in the context of the discussions on the multi-annual guidance programme but also in the context of the ongoing review of Irish fisheries policy. I will certainly give Deputy Deasy's suggestions to the Minister.
The Dáil adjourned at 11.10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 10 July 1991.