Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 June 2020
795. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his views on the opinion of four fish producer organisations (details supplied) that the Covid-19 voluntary fleet tie-up scheme announced by him is inadequate to meet the needs of the sector; and if he will engage with the producer organisations in order to amend the scheme. [9579/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Government's primary objective for our seafood sector throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic has been to maintain fishing activity so as to ensure critical food supply lines to the domestic and European markets. For this reason, the Government classified fishing as an essential service and kept the fishery harbours and related support services open throughout the Pandemic. This remains the primary Government objective in relation to the fishing industry.
I am very conscious of the disruptions to international seafood markets arising from the Covid-19 Pandemic and the impacts on our export markets and prices for our seafood. There are, of course, similar impacts across the food sector and indeed the wider economy. I have met with representatives of the fishing sector on a number of occasions throughout March and April to discuss how Government can assist the sector in this difficult period, bearing in mind Government's objectives outlined above, the universal income supports being made available by Government which are open to fishermen, and not least, the capacity of Government to provide special supports to any one sector of our economy when businesses across the economy are facing many similar difficulties.
In response to intense lobbying from Member States and industry, the European Union amended the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Regulation to make certain types of supports specifically relating to the impacts of Covid-19 eligible for EMFF aid under Member State's Operational Programmes, together with the existing array of supports for capital investment, innovation, marketing, and professional advisory services. However, no additional EU funds were made available to Member States to assist in implementing the new measures, so our capacity to use these measures is subject to the level of uncommitted funds remaining in Ireland’s EMFF Programme, and to the availability of uncommitted funds in BIM’s 2020 budget. It is important to note that BIM continues to pay out on grants previously awarded and seafood enterprises continue to apply for new EMFF grants, including some that cite Covid-19 as the reason for their proposed projects.
One of the measures made available by the EU in response to the Pandemic is aid for temporary tie-up of fishing vessels and, in my meetings with fishing representatives, selective tie-up aid was the overwhelming request for support in order to reduce the amount of fish being brought to market to match supply with demand and support prices. In response to those requests, I announced a Covid-19 Temporary Fleet Tie-up Scheme on 8 May with three one-month tie up periods to commence on 1 June and end on 31 August. I will be reviewing the Scheme at the end of each month to ensure it is achieving its objectives and that market conditions continue to warrant its operation. It is necessary that each tie-up period is consistent with the fisheries quota management regime which makes quotas available to each vessel for a one month period. Given the objective of the scheme, it would not be appropriate to have vessels tie-up for say two weeks with tie-up aid and then land their quota in the remaining two weeks.
Bearing in the mind the universal income supports being made available by Government and the banking measures that assist fishing enterprises with vessel mortgages and other borrowings during the Pandemic, there was widespread acceptance by fishing representatives in our discussions that a tie-up scheme should assist only the fixed costs of vessel owners while tied up. The Scheme I have put in place supports 100% of the fixed costs of fishing vessels across eight size categories and these figures come from the official EU Data Collection statistics gathered by BIM from information submitted by the fleet on their fixed costs. I am aware of the proposal put forward by the Killybegs Fishermens Organisation that the Tie-up Scheme should provide aid equivalent to 30% of the gross earnings of vessels per month in 2019. However, that proposal is not consistent with aiding only the fixed costs of the vessels tie-up and would result in very significant over-compensation of the vessels involved. In addition, it would cost many multiple of the funds available to me to support the entire seafood sector with the impacts of the Pandemic.
While the EU Regulation allows for the possibility that aid could be retrospective, this would do nothing to assist in matching supply with demand or in supporting prices, as it would be aiding activities that have happened in the past. It is important to bear in mind that the Tie-up Scheme is not an income support scheme. The Government's Pandemic Unemployment Payment and Wage Subsidy Scheme support the incomes of those who cannot work because of the Pandemic. Some other important considerations arise from the EMFF Regulation, which requires that vessels receiving aid for tie-up cease all fishing activity for the period concerned and Member States are required by law to ensure this is the case. This cannot be verified retrospectively for the majority of the fleet which are not equipped with on-board vessel monitoring systems.
