Muireann Kavanagh is a 14-year-old girl. She lives on Arranmore Island off the coast of Donegal. Her father, grandfather and great-grandfather were all fishermen. Muireann also fishes. She catches pollock with a hook and line, the method of fishing with the lowest impact. She wants a future on the island but she has been banned from fishing for pollock. While Muireann is told by the Government that what she was doing is now illegal, she watches from her bedroom window and sees what look like small cities. These are the foreign super-trawlers off the coast of her island hoovering up thousands of tonnes of fish, including pollock, and the Government tells her that for them it is perfectly legal.

By anyone's book, this is not fair. This is a young girl who just wants to fish. How does the Tánaiste stand over this? A 14-year-old island girl is banned from fishing with a hook and line while foreign super-trawlers hoover up the same fish as by-product off her island.

The fishery has been closed on scientific advice to make sure stocks can recover. Can the Deputy be a bit more honest in his public debate on these issues? He presents it in a certain way-----

It is not completely closed.

-----and with a certain spin. Is he saying we should ignore scientific advice? Is he saying we should now enter into a new era where we simply ignore all advice that we get, just do whatever we want, allow the stocks to be depleted and then some fine day people will turn up and there will be no fish to fish? I am advised that the fishery has been closed on scientific advice, with reducing stocks. If you close it, it recovers and people will be able to fish sustainably into the future. That apparently is the issue.

Thank you, Tánaiste.

On a point of order-----

No, there is no point of order.

It is a genuine point of order.

There is no point of order on these questions.

There is when somebody calls into question one's honesty.

No, there is not.

Come off the stage.

The super-trawlers are allowed to fish the stock as by-product.

The Deputy calls our honesty into question every single day.

The super-trawlers are allowed to do it.

Come off the stage.