Results 1-20 of 30 for at segment:8829094

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: On the six-mile review, there is an eight-week consultation period. I hope to have the document finalised and the policy published by the final quarter of this year. By the autumn of this year, I want this process concluded and what has been raised in consultation fully considered and brought into play. The former Minister, Deputy Creed, did really good work on this. It was struck down by...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: ...or four years I have been Minister, I have invested €33 million in addition to the reserve funding to extend Smooth Point pier, and another €5 million is to be made available this year. There is no doubt that Killybegs has been affected, however, and I very much recognise that. I have organised a meeting there tonight to talk to all stakeholders and determine how we can...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: -----because things can be agreed at a European level by qualified majority voting, QMV.

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: Nobody could tell the Deputy "Yes" or "No". I can, however, tell him that the approach I have taken as Minister is the reason that no mandate has been agreed at European level in respect of any engagement with Iceland. While other member states could vote us down, should they decide to, and go for a qualified majority vote, they are respecting the position I am taking at European level and...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Michael Collins: I thank the Minister. There are other issues I need to talk about. The inshore sector for crabs and shrimps has collapsed and many inshore fishermen are in a dire crisis. We met representatives of the inshore fishing sector at committee recently. The Minister said he will be meeting with them but what does he intend to achieve by that meeting? They have mortgages to pay and food to put...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Thomas Pringle: I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on what is an important issue for me and my constituents. For those who are not from a fishing community, it can be hard to understand how much of a negative impact the EU and Brexit have had and the devastating downturn these communities have experienced in recent decades. Killybegs was once known as a very prosperous town, with the herring...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Catherine Connolly: I thank the Minister for sitting through this debate. It is one of the most important debates and it should take place at a regular interval. I also welcome the good news that the Minister has stood his ground in respect of negotiations with Iceland but if anything brings home how the fisheries policy from Europe is not sustainable, and the Minister has talked about sustainability, it is...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: I asked, did the Danes offer the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine 3,000 tonnes of mackerel? The Minister has taken up at least 30 seconds of very limited time and he has not answered the question. Did they?

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: -----which I refused and blew out of the water because it would simply not cut the mustard. After refusing a number of deals, I got a much better one. Incidentally when I presented it to your own colleague, Patrick Murphy, I can recall him saying that for the first time he had some hope for our fishing sector because of the progress made with this deal. It was welcomed by him at that point...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: Yes, this 4,300 tonnes will be fished this year because of the deal I secured at the December Council. That involves a 40% allocation of the TAC from last year, as well as a 30% allocation this year, both of those being fished this year. Going forward, in the long term, there will be a 25% allocation which we secured. This is now permanently additional to the Irish quota.

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Catherine Connolly: Perhaps there will be time at the end with the Government's reply.

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Michael Collins: This long-awaited Dáil debate on the fisheries sector has finally arrived, allowing us to shed light on the EU's clandestine actions that undermine the interests of the Irish fishing industry. The man at the helm, our Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, appears to be complicit in these actions, aligning himself with unelected bureaucrats in Brussels rather than standing up...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: Had Deputy Collins been listening to what I said at the outset, he would have heard how I laid out the negotiations in relation to an engagement with the Commission on Iceland. I, as the Minister representing Ireland, has been the one who has been taking a very hard line and refusing to agree to any mandate for negotiations or for conducting an agreement with Iceland. As a result of that...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Charlie McConalogue: I thank Deputy Boyd Barrett for that contribution. It is an important issue, and it is important that everybody is part of that process because there is so much to do in this space, and so much potential. However, we have to respect those who have been on this largely on their own for many generations, and who depend on it for their livelihoods as well. Captain Robert McCabe is leading the...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Matt Shanahan: I want to ask the Minister a couple of questions. I do not want to get into the debate on quotas because, unfortunately, they are what they are and they have done tremendous damage to the overall viability of a large Irish fishing fleet now or into the future. In the Minister's report, I would think that he is talking about the idea of sustainability and growth. To the fishermen I speak...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Peadar Tóibín: In September, the Danes offered the Minister 3,000 tonnes of mackerel quota. Is that the case? This is a major success we have had in terms of a one-off increase in our mackerel quota. I engaged on this with my team when we identified an opportunity. At the time, we were accused by the Danish minister of conducting a midnight heist at the negotiations when we went after this particular...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Holly Cairns: It is important to state, just for the record, that how those quotas are divvied out is the Minister's decision. It is blatantly and disproportionately in favour of the larger players. It is something we see a playbook for from this and successive Governments, that there is a disproportionate favour for those big players and that the smaller people in the business have massively lost out....

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Catherine Connolly: We have run out of time for answers. I will stick to that and maybe at the end the Minister will generously use his time to reply. It will depend on whether the other slots are filled. People Before Profit-Solidarity is next and I call Deputy Boyd Barrett.

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: I was asked by east coast fishers to relay concerns to the Minister about the threat they see to their industry. It is currently a sustainable shellfish industry which they estimate directly and indirectly results in the employment of approximately 800 people affecting towns and coastal communities and fishers all the way up and down the east coast. The threat they see is from plans to...

Sustainable Fisheries Sector and Coastal Communities: Statements, Questions and Answers (15 Feb 2024)

Catherine Connolly: I am going through the list of speakers as is and the Minister will have time at the end. Many Members have not turned up but I cannot make that decision just yet because they may still. The Minister can use the time at the end to answer some of the questions that have not been answered. I move on to Deputy Holly Cairns from the Social Democrats.