The recent meetings I held with the UK and French Fisheries Ministers afforded an excellent opportunity to exchange views on proposed quota and days at sea restrictions in key shared fisheries in the west of Scotland and in the Irish Sea. I also discussed the Commission's quota proposals for the Celtic Sea.
Given the shared participation of Irish fishermen with both UK and French fishermen in many fisheries in these areas, there was considerable common ground between myself and my colleagues at both meetings. The need to both conserve stocks and ensure a sustainable livelihood for fishermen were identified as priorities. It was agreed that I would work closely with both ministers at this week's Council on such common concerns. The discussions included the Commission's recent expanded proposals to limit fishing effort in the Irish Sea and elsewhere.
Ireland reiterated its view that fishing effort limitation generally is a blunt instrument that will not provide adequate protection to the cod stock in the Irish Sea which is outside safe biological limits.
The specific issue of the impact which fishing effort limitation schemes have on the fishing patterns of fishing vessels was a particular feature of the debate that surrounded last year's agreement to introduce such a scheme in the North Sea and the west of Scotland. At that time, Ireland, together with a number of like-minded member states, emphasised the potential risk of fishermen putting to sea in dangerous weather conditions.
The Deputy will, therefore, be pleased to note in this regard that the Commission's current proposals on fishing effort limitation are substantially different from last year in that provision is now made for the aggregation of days into a longer, three month management period. Accordingly, the rigidity in last year's system that gave rise to such safety concerns for fishing crews has effectively been removed in the current proposals.
