AGRICULTURE/FOOD/FISHING
Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
Farmers' Markets (06/12/07)
Food Safety (08/11/07)
Brazilian Beef Imports (17/10/07)
Mutton (03/10/07)
Bogland Fires (14/06/06)
European Regulations Affecting Butchers (27/04/06)
Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005 (02/03/2006)
Greencore (09/02/06)
Farmers' Markets
06/12/07 - I was in this House when the Abattoirs Act was passed. I believed then and still believe it was the most regressive measure on food safety introduced in my time. Something that was intended to protect our food got rid of traceability. Traceability became an issue only when we eliminated the local abattoirs. I said at the time we should have insisted on certain standards in local abattoirs. However, we chose to introduce a state of the art set of regulations for which only wholesalers could qualify thus putting the small butcher in a local town out of the market. It is an important issue and should be revisited.
There is a quality issue relating to farmers’ markets. My mother used to sell fruit and vegetables, among other things. I could walk into the house blindfold the day that the Irish tomatoes came on the market at the start of the new season. An Irish tomato can be eaten like an apple, both for the smell of it which is gorgeous, the taste of it which is gorgeous and the colour which is gorgeous. Many chefs in Ireland use tinned tomato for the simple reason they cannot get the desired quality in the tomatoes bought in a shop.
I happen to live in the Minister of State’s constituency and we in north Dublin can live off the vegetables that fall through the sorting machines of the local vegetable producers. These are perfectly good cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes which do not meet the size and shape requirements dictated by some boffin in Brussels as being proper for our needs. It is madness that perfectly good, tasty fruit is being dumped because it does not conform to a sorting process and this should be investigated.
I know that the issue of food miles is close to the Minister of State’s heart. One of the problems is that much of the food we grew up with and loved is no longer available because it does not travel well. I will cite an example. Anybody of my age … will remember that the main apple was Beauty of Bath. It was a lovely striped apple with red and yellow running through it and a bit of red visible when it was bitten into. The problem is the Beauty of Bath apple does not travel well; any contact and it bruises. It is not commercial and therefore it is not available to buy and has disappeared from the market. However, it could be sold in local markets as local produce.
Local delicacies have been lost over time. The Listowel fair sells what is generally called in Listowel and north Kerry a Kerry pie but it should correctly be called a Dingle pie. This is a mutton pie which is made locally and is a delicacy. Abraimis faoin sliogán dubh, big hard mussels, which are a delicacy in many parts of County Donegal. They could be available as a local delicacy, such as tripe in other parts of the country. There is not an area in Ireland that does not have a local dish and their sale in farmers’ markets would make them known and understood by people.
The Minister of State will pass what used to be the North Dublin Farmers Co-op on his way here every morning. If he did nothing else in his tenure as Minister of State than to convince farmers of the advantages of belonging to a co-operative and looking after themselves and perhaps taking a lower price in order to facilitate local buying and selling, it would be a good achievement as farmers’ co-operatives need a boost.
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Food Safety
08/11/07 - I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, of an issue on which he and I were slightly culpable as Members of this House in the late 1980s, namely, the passing of the Abattoirs Act 1988, which was the biggest legislative mistake we have made for many years on food issues. Like many Members, I grew up in a town where, when one ordered meat from the local butcher, it most likely came from his own or a neighbour’s farm and traceability was a very simple issue. Now, even the best organised butcher’s shop might have difficulty telling a customer from where the meat it is selling came because it is buying from a central abattoir in vacuum-packed trays. We are spending billions to improve traceability although it was not an issue in the past. As the question of the provenance of food is so important, we must examine this issue.
I agree with a point made by Senator O’Sullivan. I recently went to what is probably the best food shop in Dublin at present, Fallon and Byrne in Wicklow Street. It had a fantastic selection of mushrooms, such as chantelles and many other types one does not see in shops any longer. We have destroyed the taste of mushrooms. There is no comparison between the taste of wild mushrooms, which people picked and put on the fire with a knob of butter, and the tasteless stuff that comes from dark, covered growing areas nowadays. This is because we have not trained growers in the area of taste and related aspects.
I agree with Senator Bradford and the IFA on the issue of Brazilian meat. Irish farmers have made an argument that is convincing to any interested person. I have not heard an answer to this simple question: why, if foot and mouth disease is found in this country, does the whole country close down, whereas if it happens in another country, that country can still export to us? It does not make sense. I do not add to this a criticism of the Minister, Deputy Coughlan. As Senator O’Sullivan noted, she has made every attempt to move Europe’s position on this issue. The Government should state clearly that this is wrong. If necessary, we should pass legislation to protect our farmers.
An area related to food safety in which Ireland is badly lacking is how we develop new products in a safe way. …. not long ago air-dried venison from Donegal was available in good food shops in Senator Keaveney’s constituency. It was a beautiful product, pure black, well presented and very unusual, yet the company producing it has gone out of business. This country does not produce air-dried bacon, venison or beef. We import Serrano ham and we pay big money for it. We could produce this ourselves.
I live, at the moment, in north County Dublin, which used to be the centre of the Irish vegetable industry. People go to France and to continental Europe and take photographs of vegetable displays. They want to know why we cannot have these lovely shiny large vegetables in Ireland. The answer is very simple. We apply the regulations here and that is not done in any other European country. I can walk into a food market in Provence in France and see cucumbers, root vegetables, tomatoes in particular, which would not get through the sorting system to get into the Dublin vegetable market. They would be dumped here. More good food is dumped here than is sold in other countries. We need to examine the regulation.
Other issues are the regulations relating to cottage industry, farmers’ markets and farmer outlets. Does the Minister of State know that there are farmers doing quite well selling vegetables to local people at the farm gate but they cannot include in the sale anything which has not been grown on the farm? One can buy a variety of vegetables but one might also want to buy ginger which would not have been grown on the farm and, because of ridiculous legislation, farmers are not allowed to sell that.
Back to top of the page
Brazilian Beef Imports
17/10/07 - Last week I entertained some Members with my comments on food quality. I want to give them another laugh today. This is a serious issue and I call again for a debate on the matter. I met the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for food and horticulture, Deputy Sargent, who was enthusiastic to debate the matter in the House. Apart from the issue of mutton which I raised last week, I want to know where we stand on Brazilian beef imports. The farmers are right on this one and I want a debate on it.
I want a debate on pesticides and chemicals used in vegetable cultivation. The country has a large mushroom industry with hundreds of thousands of tonnes sold domestically and exported every year. However, the number of mushrooms tested annually to ensure quality assurance is a meagre ten. In the case of leeks, one solitary specimen is tested for quality assurance. To some this may seem unimportant but we are what we eat. As we want to be the granary and garden of Europe, it is necessary for a debate on the quality assurance of our foodstuffs.
Back to top of the page
Mutton
03/10/07 - It (mutton) represents a traditional flavour of Ireland and was the basic ingredient for Irish stew. At a time when slow cooking is a fast-expanding area of cuisine, it is time that mutton be made available again in Ireland. This would provide a new outlet and market for the Irish farmer. This is exactly what the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been advocating and it represents a significant issue. …. I would like the Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Sargent, to come to the House to offer Senators his views on this matter. We need to educate ourselves, if nobody else, on the value and attraction of mutton.
Back to top of the page
Bogland Fires
14/06/06 - I wish to raise an issue concerning the Leader’s own constituency. I can assure the House that had a bog fire taken place in County Wicklow, it would have taken over the national media for the past week. A serious and risky event occurred in County Longford last week, namely, a bog fire which ran riot for a number of days. It was extremely serious and necessitated the movement of livestock. Moreover, people were obliged to move from their houses, property was damaged and trees were cut to create firebreaks. I seek reassurances that this cannot happen again, as lives could be at risk.
Apparently, other locations handle such outbreaks better. My understanding is that in places such as Laois and Offaly, a fireman is assigned to each bog to ensure that bog fires are treated and dealt with an early stage. However, the problem in the Longford area was caused by cutbacks, which meant that a similar approach was not taken and no defence mechanisms were in place. This is one of those issues in rural Ireland which is simply ignored by the establishment. It is a serious issue which could cost lives in future. I seek reassurances that it cannot happen anywhere in the boglands, which extend throughout the midlands.
Back to top of the page
European Regulations Affecting Butchers
27/04/06 - On several occasions over the years I have heard the Leader talk about the difficulties created for the development of home industry which is destroyed by an overly strict interpretation of European regulations.
We are now about to do the same again. European regulation 854/2004 will create havoc for small supermarkets and butchers. Whereas throughout our lives we have seen local butcher shops provide steak and meat to local hotels, we now have a situation where the regulation will require the butchers to register as wholesalers as opposed to retailers. This will result in a whole new set of regulations, thereby doubling up on the regulations with which retailers must currently comply. The regulation will also require veterinary and health officers to examine each business to ensure the butchers are within the regulations. This will create havoc around the country.
The interpretation the Government is taking has not been taken in other countries, particularly not in the UK. I do not want to go into the details but will give a simple example of the outcome. Around the Border areas butchers will be in competition with their colleagues. On this side of the Border, butchers who sell more than 500 kg of meat over a certain period to a local hotel or business will have to register as wholesalers putting them in competition with people from the other side of the Border who can sell up to 2,000 kg.
This regulation means we are going to over-regulate once again, put small industries out of business unnecessarily and create hardship and difficulty. This is a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and I want her to come to the House to discuss it. The Tánaiste has shown herself to be practical on issues such as this and I do not believe she would want the regulation to go ahead. I understand she has been pushed into it by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, but we should review it and ensure that Irish butchers and meat outlets are not under a more difficult regime or regulations than their colleagues in the UK. We should adopt the same approach throughout the island in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. We should ask the Tánaiste to address the issue.
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Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005
02/03/2006 - I put my hands up and state I come from a biased position. I remember in the nights of my youth watching families of fishermen stand along the quay wall in Dingle wondering whether they would return. I remember major drowning incidents occurring every couple of years.
Something has gone wrong and I want to go back to the root from where all this came. I was in Dingle last August and I spoke to a friend who was in my class in school. He owns a boat which was tied up. The Minister knows why it was tied up, which was to do with the quota. As we were there, two big Spanish trawlers came in to land a catch. One would want to see and feel the way it affected the fishermen to whom I was speaking. They were not able to fish while the Spanish trawlers were able to come in with large quotas.
Two weeks later I was standing in the fishing village of Port-Vendres in France, approximately 10 km north of the Spanish border. I was trying to speak with two French fishermen who had two large half-deckers. We could see a large fishing boat in the harbour. I tried to ask some questions about it and the French man shook his hands and stated it was Spanish. It was exactly the same in France as I had seen a week earlier in Dingle. Huge Spanish trawlers come in and scoop up everything while the local fishing industry is destroyed.
When I was going to school there were approximately four times more local boats in Dingle than there are now. That is the reality. Why does it happen? We have a duty to understand the culture of these people. I want to put it in that frame rather than go through the detail.
I disagree fundamentally with the point debated over and back about the constitutionality of administrative sanctions. The Minister made reference to it in his speech. I will point to other matters in our legislation, such as the way a doctor, lawyer or teacher can be struck off and penalised professionally and the way in which members of the accountancy profession can be penalised and fined by their profession without going to court. This is because it is done by a domestic remedy or process which has a legislative base and which in some cases has an appeal access to the courts. This should have been dealt with in that way.
The Dublin attitude to fishing is rightly based on book learning. I must query some of the statistics I see, for example this year’s mackerel quotas. Fishermen on the west coast told me there was an extraordinary run of mackerel from Scotland down to the Blaskets. Why can we not have up-to-date figures? Can the Minister rely on the figures he receives? Either they are not factually based or people are dreaming. We must examine this issue. In terms of Ireland’s background and coastline the quotas are destroying us. We must take action on this and give space to fishermen.
Part of the problem is that fishermen are not sufficiently involved in the decisions. In other countries the fishermen are involved in the policing of salmon stocks, regulation and the fishing period. Although regulation and restriction is required, stopping fishermen at sea from netting salmon is not necessarily the way to deal with the salmon issue. In Canada a certain number of salmon are required up-river to replenish stocks and feed wildlife. Rather than having quotas, which are cumbersome and difficult to police, or dates which are taken out of the air, people may not fish for salmon until the agreed stock level is reached. Why could we not trust the fishermen and do that here?
Action must be taken on small rivers all over the country. We should ask the fishermen how this can be done with a certain level of administrative penalisation and summary conviction as in the legislation for those guilty of serious crime. The examples the Minister gave on the airwaves were criminal acts. I have no problem with doing what must be done to deal with those people. If we put the word “serious” before “crime” we have serious crime producing serious criminals. I agree with the Minister on that but we must help the smaller operators and those working day to day and week to week for a living.
While aspects of fish farming may not appeal to people from Dublin 4, it is a real opportunity and must be progressed. There are developments in places, such as Oileán Cléire, and fish farming for species such as turbot is being researched. There is a future there as well that needs to be looked at. Senator Kenneally and I were talking about the buying out of licences issue, which I find extremely sad. I do not want to see the industry die. I want to know how we can make it work. There is a certain block in this regard, however. I am upset by what is happening to fishermen. I do not deny the Minister is well motivated, but I believe the projected outcome is wrong. Can we find the right balance? I believe we have missed it.
This is a difficult ministerial brief. People must accept that the Minister is doing what he believes to be right in this. I ask him to soften his approach, as well, to see how we may ensure that people working in fisheries as well as the industry itself are protected. We also need to look at what may be put in place to help them. Proactive steps are needed to put additional opportunities in place. Can we do that? How can we make it work? Numerous people cannot get through the bureaucracy.
I believe the industry is getting the wrong end of the stick from this piece of legislation. I appeal to him to soften his view on it and to approach it from three levels rather than two. Another step is needed, however — the introduction of an administrative process that has a legislative base and which facilitates access to the courts by either side, if that did not work out. I believe this is possible and there is parallel legislation in place to facilitate such an initiative. I ask the Minister to consider it.
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Greencore
09/02/06 - Today Greencore is holding its AGM at which it will announce massive profits and a bright future, and that it does not care that much about beet because it is mainly a British company dealing in snack and convenience foods. While it is looking at that bright future, beet farmers and the workers in Mallow have no future at all. To add insult to injury, to wish Greencore well on its way after leaving chaos behind it, we are giving it over €100 million. That is appalling and should be debated in the House. It is unfair on farmers, workers, the community and European taxpayers. That is not how we want our money spent and it gives a bad impression of the European project.
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Seanad debates are available in full on the Oireachtas website
Each speech listed here is an edited speech. If you'd like to see the speech or debate in full, please go to the Oireachtas website and click on "Seanad Eireann" and then "Seanad Debates" and click on the relevant date as listed with each speech on this page.
Farmers' Markets (06/12/07)
Food Safety (08/11/07)
Brazilian Beef Imports (17/10/07)
Mutton (03/10/07)
Bogland Fires (14/06/06)
European Regulations Affecting Butchers (27/04/06)
Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005 (02/03/2006)
Greencore (09/02/06)
Farmers' Markets
06/12/07 - I was in this House when the Abattoirs Act was passed. I believed then and still believe it was the most regressive measure on food safety introduced in my time. Something that was intended to protect our food got rid of traceability. Traceability became an issue only when we eliminated the local abattoirs. I said at the time we should have insisted on certain standards in local abattoirs. However, we chose to introduce a state of the art set of regulations for which only wholesalers could qualify thus putting the small butcher in a local town out of the market. It is an important issue and should be revisited.
There is a quality issue relating to farmers’ markets. My mother used to sell fruit and vegetables, among other things. I could walk into the house blindfold the day that the Irish tomatoes came on the market at the start of the new season. An Irish tomato can be eaten like an apple, both for the smell of it which is gorgeous, the taste of it which is gorgeous and the colour which is gorgeous. Many chefs in Ireland use tinned tomato for the simple reason they cannot get the desired quality in the tomatoes bought in a shop.
I happen to live in the Minister of State’s constituency and we in north Dublin can live off the vegetables that fall through the sorting machines of the local vegetable producers. These are perfectly good cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes which do not meet the size and shape requirements dictated by some boffin in Brussels as being proper for our needs. It is madness that perfectly good, tasty fruit is being dumped because it does not conform to a sorting process and this should be investigated.
I know that the issue of food miles is close to the Minister of State’s heart. One of the problems is that much of the food we grew up with and loved is no longer available because it does not travel well. I will cite an example. Anybody of my age … will remember that the main apple was Beauty of Bath. It was a lovely striped apple with red and yellow running through it and a bit of red visible when it was bitten into. The problem is the Beauty of Bath apple does not travel well; any contact and it bruises. It is not commercial and therefore it is not available to buy and has disappeared from the market. However, it could be sold in local markets as local produce.
Local delicacies have been lost over time. The Listowel fair sells what is generally called in Listowel and north Kerry a Kerry pie but it should correctly be called a Dingle pie. This is a mutton pie which is made locally and is a delicacy. Abraimis faoin sliogán dubh, big hard mussels, which are a delicacy in many parts of County Donegal. They could be available as a local delicacy, such as tripe in other parts of the country. There is not an area in Ireland that does not have a local dish and their sale in farmers’ markets would make them known and understood by people.
The Minister of State will pass what used to be the North Dublin Farmers Co-op on his way here every morning. If he did nothing else in his tenure as Minister of State than to convince farmers of the advantages of belonging to a co-operative and looking after themselves and perhaps taking a lower price in order to facilitate local buying and selling, it would be a good achievement as farmers’ co-operatives need a boost.
Back to top of the page
Food Safety
08/11/07 - I remind the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, of an issue on which he and I were slightly culpable as Members of this House in the late 1980s, namely, the passing of the Abattoirs Act 1988, which was the biggest legislative mistake we have made for many years on food issues. Like many Members, I grew up in a town where, when one ordered meat from the local butcher, it most likely came from his own or a neighbour’s farm and traceability was a very simple issue. Now, even the best organised butcher’s shop might have difficulty telling a customer from where the meat it is selling came because it is buying from a central abattoir in vacuum-packed trays. We are spending billions to improve traceability although it was not an issue in the past. As the question of the provenance of food is so important, we must examine this issue.
I agree with a point made by Senator O’Sullivan. I recently went to what is probably the best food shop in Dublin at present, Fallon and Byrne in Wicklow Street. It had a fantastic selection of mushrooms, such as chantelles and many other types one does not see in shops any longer. We have destroyed the taste of mushrooms. There is no comparison between the taste of wild mushrooms, which people picked and put on the fire with a knob of butter, and the tasteless stuff that comes from dark, covered growing areas nowadays. This is because we have not trained growers in the area of taste and related aspects.
I agree with Senator Bradford and the IFA on the issue of Brazilian meat. Irish farmers have made an argument that is convincing to any interested person. I have not heard an answer to this simple question: why, if foot and mouth disease is found in this country, does the whole country close down, whereas if it happens in another country, that country can still export to us? It does not make sense. I do not add to this a criticism of the Minister, Deputy Coughlan. As Senator O’Sullivan noted, she has made every attempt to move Europe’s position on this issue. The Government should state clearly that this is wrong. If necessary, we should pass legislation to protect our farmers.
An area related to food safety in which Ireland is badly lacking is how we develop new products in a safe way. …. not long ago air-dried venison from Donegal was available in good food shops in Senator Keaveney’s constituency. It was a beautiful product, pure black, well presented and very unusual, yet the company producing it has gone out of business. This country does not produce air-dried bacon, venison or beef. We import Serrano ham and we pay big money for it. We could produce this ourselves.
I live, at the moment, in north County Dublin, which used to be the centre of the Irish vegetable industry. People go to France and to continental Europe and take photographs of vegetable displays. They want to know why we cannot have these lovely shiny large vegetables in Ireland. The answer is very simple. We apply the regulations here and that is not done in any other European country. I can walk into a food market in Provence in France and see cucumbers, root vegetables, tomatoes in particular, which would not get through the sorting system to get into the Dublin vegetable market. They would be dumped here. More good food is dumped here than is sold in other countries. We need to examine the regulation.
Other issues are the regulations relating to cottage industry, farmers’ markets and farmer outlets. Does the Minister of State know that there are farmers doing quite well selling vegetables to local people at the farm gate but they cannot include in the sale anything which has not been grown on the farm? One can buy a variety of vegetables but one might also want to buy ginger which would not have been grown on the farm and, because of ridiculous legislation, farmers are not allowed to sell that.
Back to top of the page
Brazilian Beef Imports
17/10/07 - Last week I entertained some Members with my comments on food quality. I want to give them another laugh today. This is a serious issue and I call again for a debate on the matter. I met the Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food with responsibility for food and horticulture, Deputy Sargent, who was enthusiastic to debate the matter in the House. Apart from the issue of mutton which I raised last week, I want to know where we stand on Brazilian beef imports. The farmers are right on this one and I want a debate on it.
I want a debate on pesticides and chemicals used in vegetable cultivation. The country has a large mushroom industry with hundreds of thousands of tonnes sold domestically and exported every year. However, the number of mushrooms tested annually to ensure quality assurance is a meagre ten. In the case of leeks, one solitary specimen is tested for quality assurance. To some this may seem unimportant but we are what we eat. As we want to be the granary and garden of Europe, it is necessary for a debate on the quality assurance of our foodstuffs.
Back to top of the page
Mutton
03/10/07 - It (mutton) represents a traditional flavour of Ireland and was the basic ingredient for Irish stew. At a time when slow cooking is a fast-expanding area of cuisine, it is time that mutton be made available again in Ireland. This would provide a new outlet and market for the Irish farmer. This is exactly what the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been advocating and it represents a significant issue. …. I would like the Minister of State with responsibility for food, Deputy Sargent, to come to the House to offer Senators his views on this matter. We need to educate ourselves, if nobody else, on the value and attraction of mutton.
Back to top of the page
Bogland Fires
14/06/06 - I wish to raise an issue concerning the Leader’s own constituency. I can assure the House that had a bog fire taken place in County Wicklow, it would have taken over the national media for the past week. A serious and risky event occurred in County Longford last week, namely, a bog fire which ran riot for a number of days. It was extremely serious and necessitated the movement of livestock. Moreover, people were obliged to move from their houses, property was damaged and trees were cut to create firebreaks. I seek reassurances that this cannot happen again, as lives could be at risk.
Apparently, other locations handle such outbreaks better. My understanding is that in places such as Laois and Offaly, a fireman is assigned to each bog to ensure that bog fires are treated and dealt with an early stage. However, the problem in the Longford area was caused by cutbacks, which meant that a similar approach was not taken and no defence mechanisms were in place. This is one of those issues in rural Ireland which is simply ignored by the establishment. It is a serious issue which could cost lives in future. I seek reassurances that it cannot happen anywhere in the boglands, which extend throughout the midlands.
Back to top of the page
European Regulations Affecting Butchers
27/04/06 - On several occasions over the years I have heard the Leader talk about the difficulties created for the development of home industry which is destroyed by an overly strict interpretation of European regulations.
We are now about to do the same again. European regulation 854/2004 will create havoc for small supermarkets and butchers. Whereas throughout our lives we have seen local butcher shops provide steak and meat to local hotels, we now have a situation where the regulation will require the butchers to register as wholesalers as opposed to retailers. This will result in a whole new set of regulations, thereby doubling up on the regulations with which retailers must currently comply. The regulation will also require veterinary and health officers to examine each business to ensure the butchers are within the regulations. This will create havoc around the country.
The interpretation the Government is taking has not been taken in other countries, particularly not in the UK. I do not want to go into the details but will give a simple example of the outcome. Around the Border areas butchers will be in competition with their colleagues. On this side of the Border, butchers who sell more than 500 kg of meat over a certain period to a local hotel or business will have to register as wholesalers putting them in competition with people from the other side of the Border who can sell up to 2,000 kg.
This regulation means we are going to over-regulate once again, put small industries out of business unnecessarily and create hardship and difficulty. This is a matter for the Tánaiste and Minister for Health and Children and I want her to come to the House to discuss it. The Tánaiste has shown herself to be practical on issues such as this and I do not believe she would want the regulation to go ahead. I understand she has been pushed into it by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, but we should review it and ensure that Irish butchers and meat outlets are not under a more difficult regime or regulations than their colleagues in the UK. We should adopt the same approach throughout the island in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement. We should ask the Tánaiste to address the issue.
Back to top of the page
Sea-Fisheries and Maritime-Jurisdiction Bill 2005
02/03/2006 - I put my hands up and state I come from a biased position. I remember in the nights of my youth watching families of fishermen stand along the quay wall in Dingle wondering whether they would return. I remember major drowning incidents occurring every couple of years.
Something has gone wrong and I want to go back to the root from where all this came. I was in Dingle last August and I spoke to a friend who was in my class in school. He owns a boat which was tied up. The Minister knows why it was tied up, which was to do with the quota. As we were there, two big Spanish trawlers came in to land a catch. One would want to see and feel the way it affected the fishermen to whom I was speaking. They were not able to fish while the Spanish trawlers were able to come in with large quotas.
Two weeks later I was standing in the fishing village of Port-Vendres in France, approximately 10 km north of the Spanish border. I was trying to speak with two French fishermen who had two large half-deckers. We could see a large fishing boat in the harbour. I tried to ask some questions about it and the French man shook his hands and stated it was Spanish. It was exactly the same in France as I had seen a week earlier in Dingle. Huge Spanish trawlers come in and scoop up everything while the local fishing industry is destroyed.
When I was going to school there were approximately four times more local boats in Dingle than there are now. That is the reality. Why does it happen? We have a duty to understand the culture of these people. I want to put it in that frame rather than go through the detail.
I disagree fundamentally with the point debated over and back about the constitutionality of administrative sanctions. The Minister made reference to it in his speech. I will point to other matters in our legislation, such as the way a doctor, lawyer or teacher can be struck off and penalised professionally and the way in which members of the accountancy profession can be penalised and fined by their profession without going to court. This is because it is done by a domestic remedy or process which has a legislative base and which in some cases has an appeal access to the courts. This should have been dealt with in that way.
The Dublin attitude to fishing is rightly based on book learning. I must query some of the statistics I see, for example this year’s mackerel quotas. Fishermen on the west coast told me there was an extraordinary run of mackerel from Scotland down to the Blaskets. Why can we not have up-to-date figures? Can the Minister rely on the figures he receives? Either they are not factually based or people are dreaming. We must examine this issue. In terms of Ireland’s background and coastline the quotas are destroying us. We must take action on this and give space to fishermen.
Part of the problem is that fishermen are not sufficiently involved in the decisions. In other countries the fishermen are involved in the policing of salmon stocks, regulation and the fishing period. Although regulation and restriction is required, stopping fishermen at sea from netting salmon is not necessarily the way to deal with the salmon issue. In Canada a certain number of salmon are required up-river to replenish stocks and feed wildlife. Rather than having quotas, which are cumbersome and difficult to police, or dates which are taken out of the air, people may not fish for salmon until the agreed stock level is reached. Why could we not trust the fishermen and do that here?
Action must be taken on small rivers all over the country. We should ask the fishermen how this can be done with a certain level of administrative penalisation and summary conviction as in the legislation for those guilty of serious crime. The examples the Minister gave on the airwaves were criminal acts. I have no problem with doing what must be done to deal with those people. If we put the word “serious” before “crime” we have serious crime producing serious criminals. I agree with the Minister on that but we must help the smaller operators and those working day to day and week to week for a living.
While aspects of fish farming may not appeal to people from Dublin 4, it is a real opportunity and must be progressed. There are developments in places, such as Oileán Cléire, and fish farming for species such as turbot is being researched. There is a future there as well that needs to be looked at. Senator Kenneally and I were talking about the buying out of licences issue, which I find extremely sad. I do not want to see the industry die. I want to know how we can make it work. There is a certain block in this regard, however. I am upset by what is happening to fishermen. I do not deny the Minister is well motivated, but I believe the projected outcome is wrong. Can we find the right balance? I believe we have missed it.
This is a difficult ministerial brief. People must accept that the Minister is doing what he believes to be right in this. I ask him to soften his approach, as well, to see how we may ensure that people working in fisheries as well as the industry itself are protected. We also need to look at what may be put in place to help them. Proactive steps are needed to put additional opportunities in place. Can we do that? How can we make it work? Numerous people cannot get through the bureaucracy.
I believe the industry is getting the wrong end of the stick from this piece of legislation. I appeal to him to soften his view on it and to approach it from three levels rather than two. Another step is needed, however — the introduction of an administrative process that has a legislative base and which facilitates access to the courts by either side, if that did not work out. I believe this is possible and there is parallel legislation in place to facilitate such an initiative. I ask the Minister to consider it.
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Greencore
09/02/06 - Today Greencore is holding its AGM at which it will announce massive profits and a bright future, and that it does not care that much about beet because it is mainly a British company dealing in snack and convenience foods. While it is looking at that bright future, beet farmers and the workers in Mallow have no future at all. To add insult to injury, to wish Greencore well on its way after leaving chaos behind it, we are giving it over €100 million. That is appalling and should be debated in the House. It is unfair on farmers, workers, the community and European taxpayers. That is not how we want our money spent and it gives a bad impression of the European project.
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