What we have seen over the past few weeks is an absolute and abject failure of the Common Fisheries Policy. Even the 1996 Hague preferences have failed. That was the very mechanism that was set up to guarantee Ireland a minimum level of fish to catch in our own waters. That is what it would have meant. However, France, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands banded together to ensure that not even a boat could be taken on it. The truth is that Ireland's fishing industry has suffered a death by a thousand cuts. I come from Mayo, a huge coastal county. I have watched it over the years. Along with the fishing families, I have watched huge trawlers behave absolutely recklessly because they were legally allowed to do it. Then, we have the criminalisation of fishermen and fishing families at the same time. What has happened here should not a surprise to us but it is an absolute shock. It is a shock to the system and it is a shock that has to be corrected. The truth is that the EU has failed Ireland's fishing industry repeatedly but so has the Government. The EU got used to successive governments allowing it to happen over and over again. As Sinn Féin's fisheries spokesperson, Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, said earlier, the EU-based corporations were allegedly complicit in investing in fleets in third countries and benefiting from inflated quotas while fishing families and fishing communities here have to suffer. We need a radical reset of the fishing industry and of fishing across the board. I also take the opportunity to tell the Minister of State what is happening and to ask him to come to Mayo to meet with the anglers and the draft net licence holders there. What Government is attempting to do is to put an absolute blanket ban on fishing. Even if we take the Moy complex of 60 miles of rivers, 12 fisheries, 115 rivers and 20 lakes, will the Minister of State put what he is proposing to do for the coming season on hold to have proper consultation with the fishermen and the tourism bodies and to have a proper impact assessment on what he is proposing to do there? Will he please put it on hold while this consultation takes place to hear the severe impact this would have? It cannot be allowed to happen.

Sentiment score: -0.11