Conor D McGuinness: Calls EU Fishing Quotas an 'Ambush'

A couple of things I'd like to say, Minister, at the outset. Waterford has a coastline of 147 kilometres. Belgium has a coastline of 67 kilometres. Ireland as a whole, under these quotas, will have 28 tonnes of sole to catch next year, and Belgium gets a quota of 450. So I know you know this, we all know as we're sitting around this committee room, but the depth of anger, nobody's surprised, but the depth of anger and despair and shame, I think, is another feeling that's out there at the moment. About the results of these quota negotiations is too fine a word for what it is, because it was something like an ambush, I think. And I don't envy you on a personal level, Minister, or indeed your team, for being out there and dealing with it, but by God, it was an ambush. The 1916 proclamation says, we declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies to be sovereign, and also that Ireland resolves to pursue the prosperity of the whole nation. And the democratic programme says that the nation's sovereignty extends to all the nation's resources and to all the wealth and wealth producing of the nation. And that will be utilised in the interests of the Irish people. And what we have is is a massive affront to our sovereignty, a massive affront to our sovereignty, and it makes no difference that that was willingly ceded decades ago by several generations back, I suppose, of political leaders at the time. It is far too late for recrimination or blame, but it is an affront to our sovereignty. We have injury heaped on injury heaped on injury, and as Deputy McLaughlin said, now the insult that has been levelled our way, and the hurt and the shame and the anger and the despair are very, very real in the community. And I mean it asks the question, are we a member of state, are we an equal participant of colleague countries in a union, or are we a colony? Because what is colonialism? It is the subjugation and the control of another people, of another territory, so that the mineral wealth, the productive resources of that territory or that people can be extracted for the benefit of the coloniser. And it is very difficult to see anything. I said in committee here several months ago, when we had our first engagement, I believe, that Ireland is seen as a soft touch, and has historically been seen as a soft touch. And we see this massive departure of the European Union and its member states values from what we hold dear in Ireland, and be that over the Mercosur trade agreement that has been railroaded through, whether it is the creeping militarisation, and the attempts, and the daily and weekly insults towards our policy of military neutrality, whether it is the flag waving for genocide that we saw from the European Commission, and by some member states that I have called out in the Dáil. And now we see it again with these quota negotiations. And what we have seen is that natural resource that belongs to us, that belongs to future generations of Irish people, being seeded and privatised in the interests of, if we are being absolutely honest, a corporate monopoly. A corporate monopoly. And it is not being seeded and surrendered and given to them by us, but by governments of Belgium, by governments of France, the government of Germany, the government of Poland. And I really believe, Minister, that we need to get to grips with this. And I said it to the Taoiseach, as lately as last Thursday, I said it here at our last engagement of this committee, that this needs an all-of-government approach. The ambassadors of those countries should be called in. They should be called in. And I'm glad that you voted against it. That is the one saving grace. And they should be called in and they should be hauled over the coals over this. This demands a diplomatic response. And we need, as a country, we need to reassert our sovereignty. And I don't, there's been talk about legal avenues and that is important. But we need to take political and diplomatic measures immediately at this point, Minister. And I'd ask you, and I will say this to the Taoiseach and I'll say it to other members of government in the days ahead, but I'm sending this message to you and I hope you communicate it to government as well. We cannot, as I understand it, withdraw from the CFP. But we can certainly stop cooperating with the European Union and EU member states. And I think we need to start asserting ourselves. We need to start asserting our right. I have some questions. The role of the Taoiseach. I strongly suspect that the Taoiseach didn't lift a phone. I could be wrong, and that remains to be seen. But I suspect he didn't do much heavy lifting in regards to this, despite having marched people to the top of the hill and meeting with fishing industry representatives. I'm very interested to know what, if anything, the Taoiseach did, head of government to head of government, in advance of these, again, negotiations is the wrong term for what actually happened. And in terms of the working group, what will you do to ensure that the composition of that is made up of fishermen? Because too often these decisions are made, and we've seen it over the weekend in Brussels, too often these decisions are made when they're outside the door. Those are my questions, Minister. Thank you. So thanks very much. And just thanks for your general view. I know you're intimately interested in this. You make the point in relation to the amount of soil that can be caught by fishermen on the East Coast versus Belgium. And unfortunately, that's a historical fact. And it was based, I guess, and I'm not going to try to second guess the decision that were taken back then, but it was based on where the Irish fishing fleet was versus where Belgium fishing fleet was. They'd had a greater history. So quota is based on often the historical dimension of quota. And more than it was in the dairy sector, it was based on historical track record, reference year, what were you catching? I mean, Deputy Gallagher identified that his view was that some countries had overestimated their landings in particular years to get quota. I don't know the provenance of that, but it's possible. But regardless, so then when you get either an increase, it's on a sliding scale or a decrease. So you're never changing that relative stability is what it's kind of referred to as what one has versus the other. It's based on a point in time. Really, the Hague's was the bit that I'm most annoyed about. In terms of the value overall, it's not huge, but it's important because it's fish rather than money. And it's fish that gives processing. Minister, and I'll just tell you very briefly because like this is about money and it is about jobs and it is about economic activity in coastal communities. It's also about sovereignty, which is, I think, you know, if you were to boil down my contribution there to one word is about sovereignty. But it's also about conservation. And you quite rightly said that there isn't enough fish in Irish waters to sustain the fishing effort that OVU member states that has gone on in Irish waters here too far. There is enough fish in there to keep our fishing industry going. And this is why I think outside of the technical specifics of it, a reset and about face and an entire change from the Irish government and how we relate to our maritime resource and how we engage with the European Union on it. And that needs to be assertive. And I think we need to tell the European Union that we're we're no longer going to be a soft touch. That's the crux of our contribution rather than the technical specifics. I get your point and I get the spirit of what you were saying. It's difficult to address that because much of it is historic and to what extent you can unfurl the CFP from the rest of our relationship with Europe is difficult. I've been pushing for, there's been an evaluation of the CFP ongoing now for some time and I'm pushing for that to move from evaluation stage to revision. Now, I don't want to come before the committee and indicate that if we get a revision that I can get to change the relative stability because it'll be done on, I presume, on the basis of a qualified majority. So unless everybody else buys into it, that doesn't happen. But we can certainly make a case and we will be and we'll be fighting that aggressively. And I intend to, you know, work with the Commission. Very briefly, because I'm conscious of your time as well Minister and Deputy McLaughlin wants to come in with the supplementary, but do you think that it would be appropriate for the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade at this point to call in the ambassadors of those countries who blocked the Hague preferences as a diplomatic response? Justin, your own opinion as a parliamentarian as much as Minister of State? What I will say, for the countries that I visited, I had great cooperation and great support from the ambassadors and their team in making the case. Look, I'm happy to engage with the Tornist as I have done on this. And if he decides or dictates, I don't want to tell the Tornist what to do. Would it necessarily change we're bringing the ambassadors in? I'm not so sure. I've spoken just last week with the Norwegian ambassador, whom we have a cordial relationship with on energy and on where we're trying to go with offshore energy. But I made it very clear that I have a problem with their fishing efforts. I don't mean as part of an engagement post negotiations, I mean as a formal diplomatic protest and demarche to the ambassadors to communicate to their governments for their conduct over the weekend. That's what I mean, rather than engagement. As a piece of diplomacy to express to them the dissatisfaction of the Irish government. And that's the message I'd like you to take back to Minister McEntee. I'm happy to do that. Happy to take that message back.