Statement to the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
December 2nd, 2014

Sustainability Impact Assessment of EU Commission Proposal

“Proposal for a Council Regulation fixing for 2015 the fishing opportunities for certain fish stocks and groups of fish stocks, applicable in Union waters and, for Union vessels, in certain non-Union waters and repealing Council Regulation (EU) No 779/2014”

– COM (2014) 670 final

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine: (Simon Coveney TD)

  • The annual fishing opportunities for fishing fleets are traditionally agreed at the December Fisheries Council. This year, the arrangements for 2015 are due to be negotiated at the Council scheduled for the 15thand 16th of December. The levels of Total Allowable Catch (TAC) and the quotas for Ireland will again be determined at that meeting following negotiations with Member States and the EU Commission. The Fisheries Council will also decide on the fishing effort, which determines days spent at sea, available for the Irish fleet in the Irish Sea and off the north-west coast for 2015.
  • The process of preparing for the Council is now well under way with the publication of detailed proposals for TACs and quotas of key stocks of interest to Ireland in late October and November. The proposal covers stocks which are not subject to third party international agreements and are, in the main, whitefish and prawn stocks.
  • Stocks which are subject to ongoing international negotiations such as blue whiting and whiting in the Celtic Sea are not included in the proposal. Ireland, on behalf of the European Union, is hosting important fisheries negotiations between Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal and Ireland at the National Seafood Centre in Clonakilty, Co. Cork. These negotiations, on the annual fishing arrangements for 2015 between the European Union (EU) and Norway commenced yesterday and are expected to continue all this week.
  • Mackerel was agreed at Coastal state level last week and Ireland will have a quota of 89,000 tonnes for 2015. The latter is a very good result for Ireland in our most important fishery.
  • The Commission’s proposals are based on formal advice received from ICES, the independent international body with responsibility for advising on the state of fish stocks. It also takes account of the views of the (STECF) Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries, which gives the Commission its views on the economic, technical and social impacts of the scientific advice.
  • In order to inform my negotiations at the December Fisheries Council, I have had an assessment of the impacts of the Commission proposal undertaken. The preparation of a Sea Fisheries Sustainability Impact Assessment is provided for in the Programme for Government. To facilitate and inform these deliberations, an open consultation process was initiated, whereby stakeholders were asked to submit their comments and observations on the Commission proposal for fishing opportunities for 2015. From November 5th an online web portal on was activated to enable the transmission of electronic submissions for consideration.
  • In addition, I convened a meeting of stakeholders on the 26th of November which gave a further opportunity to key stakeholders to outline their position directly to me on the many aspects of this proposal. In all 5 submissions were received by the closure date. The full content of all the submissions received by the deadline are to be found on the website.
  • I agree with the sentiment in many of the contributions, which call for greater adherence to the available scientific advice to enable prudent and appropriate management decisions to be taken, allied with a concern about misapplication of some scientific advice. Let me be clear, I do not agree with taking an overly narrow interpretation of some of the scientific advice. I will not support cuts where additional information is available to inform the decision and where there is a real risk of generating higher discard levels than at present.
  • The Marine Institute and BIM have undertaken an evaluation of the Commission’s proposal which is contained in the Sea Fisheries Sustainability Impact Assessment.

Biological Assessment

  • While noting an improvement in the status of some fish stocks, others remain a concern, namely in the areas West of Scotland, and in the Irish and Celtic Seas. Much needs to be done for the benefit of our fishing industry to rebuild all stocks to sustainable levels, including, in some cases, further reductions in fishing opportunities and, in other cases, improving selectivity to avoid by-catch. Implementing a reformed Common Fisheries Policy and ending overfishing will require continued work and commitment by all Member States, including Ireland.
  • The Impact Assessment summarises the pressure on the 73 stocks dealt with in the 2014 Stock Book. This is an increase from 59 stocks last year, mainly due to the addition of a number of skates and rays stocks. There is a higher number, 25 stocks, assessed to be sustainably fished in 2014, up from 20 last year. The proportion remains the same due to the higher number of stocks being assessed overall this year. The number of stocks overfished has also increased from 14 in 2013 to 22 in 2014. This is due to the inclusion of 4 new stocks (rays and seabass) and 4 stocks have gone from unknown status or underfished to overfished. The number of stocks with unknown status is 26, which is similar to last year.
  • In respect of the biomass of stocks, that is the quantity of mature fish in the sea, approximately one quarter, or 17 stocks are in a positive state with above biomass trigger points. The number of depleted stocks has increased from 7 to 12 and now 16% of stocks are assessed to be depleted. The number of stocks with unknown Spawning Stock Biomass (SSB), no assessments or undefined maximum rate of fishing mortality (Fmsy) remains relatively high involving 44 stocks. Many of these stocks have good information on biomass trends and this informs scientific advice for the stocks.
  • As part of the negotiations on the European Maritime Fisheries Fund, I secured a budget of €32.5 million for data collection. This will be available to the Marine Institute together with national funding to deliver enhanced data collection work over the period to 2020. I am confident that we will improve information and provide better quality advice for the stocks around our coast with this commitment to the data collection work of the Marine Institute.
  • It is also noted that the activities of the fleet have other impacts on the wider marine ecosystem. Greater efforts are necessary to achieve a more harmonious and eco-friendly interaction with the broader environment and to ensure compliance with European Environmental Directives. These efforts will be required to be imposed at European level on all EU fleets fishing in shared fisheries under the EU Common Fisheries Policy. This is an area that will receive attention in the reformed CFP.
  • I will not go into a stock by stock discussion here; however, the specific details are available in the document which has been laid before the Dail and in the accompanying Stock Book, which was prepared by the Marine Institute. I will be prepared to address any specific issues on individual stocks raised.

CFP/MSY/Discards Ban

  • As a general principal, I amcommitted to the ambitious policy of achieving MSY by 2015 where possible and by 2020 at the latest. This must be implemented in a rational and progressive manner. In line with the CFP, I consider that we will need to phase in delivering fMSY if its immediate application seriously jeopardises the social and economic sustainability of the fishing fleet.
  • Additional changes in the process of being introduced under the reformed CFP include:
  • an obligation to land all catches; this will apply to pelagic species from the 1st of January 2015 and will be phased in over three years, commencing with some of the main demersal species in 2016;
  • development of a more regionalised approach; Ireland will chair the North Western Waters Group of Member States in the first half of 2015 during which the six Member States group will be working on the very difficult task of drawing up a discards plan for demersal stocks in the waters between the north coast of France and the northern tip of Scotland.
  • a move towards multi-annual plans which cover multiple stocks, where and when they are exploited together.
  • These changes will result in a major shift from current management approaches. This provides a challenge to all stakeholders to identify and apply instruments that are consistent with the overall policy objectives, whilst maximising the potential yield available in line with available quotas. In particular, the obligation to land all catches means that TACs must be set taking this situation into account. The reformed CFP provides that when the obligation to land applies to a stock, the TAC will be set to reflect catches. This should involve higher TACs, as discarding will no longer be permitted, from 1 January 2016 for certain whitefish stocks as the landing obligation is rolled out.
  • There is a serious challenge for our industry in preparing for implementing the landing obligation or as it is more commonly referred to as the discards ban. To assist industry, I have established a national Discards Implementation Group under Dr. Noel Cawley to help prepare the industry for the challenges that lie ahead. The work of this Group will intensify next year as we face the considerable challenge of commencing the implementing the discards ban in our mixed whitefish fisheries.
  • Crucial to preparing for the landing obligation will be the introduction of improved technical measures to reduce significantly catches of juvenile fish and avoid catches of depleted stocks. I consider that it will be essential to include technical measures such as mesh size changes and closed areas in regional discard plansto be drawn up by the regional Member States and implemented in EU law. There was some ambiguity from the Commission this year as to whether or not this was legally possible. To ensure that it is, I have been working very hard to have it specifically set down in EU Regulation. I am hopeful that this matter will be resolved satisfactorily in the near future.
  • The Marine Institute, together with other EU partners, have been working with the North Western Waters Advisory Committee to begin the development of mixed fisheries plans to aid the decision making process. The EU Commission has funded two major projects to deal with these mixed fisheries interactions. Our industry is heavily involved in these projects which aim to highlight and identify the biological and economic trade-offs between different management options. This work is an investment in the future and will help towards better TAC setting in future years.

Economic and Social Impact

  • On the specific issue of the TAC and quota proposals for the December Council, BIM estimates that the Proposal as it currently stands will see a net reduction in fishing opportunity (Quotas) for the Irish whitefish sector of -20% by volume (tonnes). In financial terms this amounts to a direct income reduction of €18.2 million (-17%) on 2014.
  • Pelagic quotas will also decline, due in large part to decreases in boarfish and herring quotas. The overall impact will be a reduction of €13.24 million on 2014.
  • Overall, the loss in total Irish fishing opportunities in financial terms, if the Commission proposal is adopted unchanged, amounts to a direct income reduction of €31.46 million on 2014.
  • At regional level in Irish Sea, Celtic sea and west coast the Proposal sees a 24% reduction in quotas, or a reduction in value of €18.8 million for the demersal (whitefish and prawn) fleet. This will directly impact the ports of Clogherhead, Howth, Dunmore East, Kilmore Quay, Dingle, Castletownbere, and Ros an mhíl, as well as other, smaller, ports.
  • An 8% increase in quotas for the demersal (whitefish and prawn) fleet in the Northwest will directly benefit the ports of Greencastle and Killybegs.
  • In addition to the direct losses to the fleet, income is also lost from the processing sector as a direct result of reduced catches and in a number of ancillary industries (net making, chandlery, engineering, refrigeration etc). Based on a total turnover generated per tonne of fish landed, BIM estimates that the full costs (direct and indirect) of the proposed quota reductions in the Commission’s proposal pre Council are in the order of €78 million.
  • BIM further estimates, on the basis of the most recent employment surveys of the catching sector that these reductions could impact between 500 - 600 full and part time jobs either through reduced incomes, partial lay-offs or redundancies.

Hague Preferences

  • The proposal does not include the “Hague Preferences” which are a safety net for the Irish fleet on specific stocks where Total Allowable Catches (TAC’s) are in decline. The Hague Preferences are negotiated annually at the Council in the face of considerable opposition from a number of Member States. The loss of these allocations in 2015 would amount to 1,351 tonnes of fish with a direct value of €2.9 million.
  • BIM estimates that the full value (direct and indirect) of the Hague quotas in 2015 is €8.1 million with an associated impact on between 100 full and part time jobs either through reduced incomes, partial lay-offs or redundancies.

Conclusion

  • To conclude I can concur with the findings of the Sea Fisheries Sustainability Impact Assessment. I will not support cuts where reliable scientifically vetted additional information is available to inform the decision or where there is a real risk of generating higher discard levels than at present or where the proposal would lead to increased discarding of fish.
  • There is a high cost from a social and economic perspective when quota cuts are proposed and we have to be satisfied that in every case these cuts are justifiable. Fishing ports and whole communities all around our coast are dependent on fisheries for their very survival.
  • Finally I would like to publicly thank and acknowledge all those who contributed to the production of this Impact Assessment, and look forward to the debate on the conclusions.
  • Thank You Chair.