It is disappointing that the House is unable to sit tomorrow. While I understand the points the Leader has made, apart from what Senator Thomas Byrne said about the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill, the Minister of State, Deputy Sean Sherlock, outlined clearly yesterday a substantial amendment to insert a new section into the Bill which those of us on this side of the House and other Senators deserve to have an opportunity to examine properly.

I ask the Leader to arrange for an urgent debate on the fishing industry. The whitefish fleet is at crisis point. In the past couple of days 15 boats were tied up at Kilmore Quay at the request of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, SFPA. That is ludicrous. Two boats had fish over quota, but the SFPA tied up the entire fleet, a total of 21 boats, and put 115 jobs at risk. Our whitefish quotas are totally inadequate. This is hereditary. I am not being political. In the past 40 years our fishermen have worked with their hands tied behind their backs. This is recognised by the fishing associations all the way from Rossaveal to the south coast and up to the Leader's county, to Kilmore Quay and Howth. If the SFPA and the authorities want to work rigorously within the law every boat from Donegal to Castletownbere to Howth will be tied up, day in, day out because we do not have the quota. In 2012 the French were entitled to take 24,000 tonnes of monkfish from our waters and the United Kingdom, 14,000 tonnes, but Ireland can take a mere 2,300 tonnes.

It is ridiculous.

Last year Ireland used 98% of its quota for monkfish, France used less than 60%, leaving 10,000 tonnes of monkfish that it could have caught in Irish waters but did not, while the Irish boats could not access it because of our quota regime. The United Kingdom did not use its full monkfish quota. Ireland caught 92% of its quota of megrim - a whitefish - in Irish waters, not the Bay of Biscay, the Mediterranean or the North Sea, whereas France caught only 43%. The French did not catch almost 60% of its megrim quota, but our boys are being tied up and criminalised for these offences.

It is disgraceful.

We all love prawn cocktail. In area 7, in our coastal waters, Ireland caught 104% of its prawn quota last year. Up to a few years ago prawns were not a quota species. As the French caught 11% of the quota, they did not take up almost 90% of their quota of the fish available around the coast outside our door, so to speak. Although there is scientific evidence that the fish are there, the Irish boats are being tied up day in, day out and jobs are being put at risk. It is crazy. This scientific evidence comes from the Marine Institute and from the European Commission which each year study the various species of fish. It is a disgrace. At a conservative estimate, 7 billion Irish fish have been taken from our waters in the past 40 years. When we were in financial difficulty the Commission was able to dictate exactly what we should do, telling us not to burn the bondholders and to support the banks, which we did, yet when we seek and demand a bit of extra fish quota to keep our fishermen and boats at sea and to sustain jobs we are given the thumbs down. It is about time we stood up and fought.

I will seek an amendment to the Order of Business today on this issue, to ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine to come into the House as a matter of urgency. The Seanad is not sitting tomorrow. I will demand that we sit tomorrow and have a long debate on fishing. It is crazy that 7 billion fish were plundered from Irish waters. Successive Governments have made mistakes. I have challenged Fianna Fáil Ministers year in year out.

The matter about sitting tomorrow will be decided at the end of business today.

Irrespective of whether we sit tomorrow, I want to make the point that I am proposing an amendment to the Order of Business today to the effect that the Minister come to the House today to deal with the important issues I have raised.

Fishing is rarely raised here, but it is vitally important that we debate it from time to time. The result of the quota will be to decommission 50% of our boats if we comply with the law and that is a serious issue. Half of the trawlers and half of the fishermen have gone from the port of Castletownbere which is close to where I live. There are 700 employed in the fishing industry in the Castletownbere region, either directly or processing on the shore. Half of those jobs will go. It is a scientific and economic fact that a recent survey of Beara Peninsula showed that 70% of the economic output on the peninsula was due to the fishing industry. If we consider that, we can also consider Rossaveal, Kilmore Quay and Dunmore East in the same light. I will push very hard for an amendment to the Order of Business on this important issue. It is very serious that at any given time half of the whitefish fleet can be tied up at the behest of the SFPA. There is something ludicrously wrong in that. It is about time that the Minister demand extra quota or fair play from Europe for Irish fishermen in Irish waters.

The Leader's announcement about tomorrow's business is unfortunate, but it is most unusual that we would have to do this and it is important not to rush into taking Report Stage of the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013 given the extensive amendments announced by the Minister yesterday and the views expressed on Committee Stage last night. There is a positive reason for this. We should not rush prematurely into Report Stage.

Yesterday on the Order of Business I welcomed the fact that President Michael D. Higgins would make an official visit to Britain next year. It is great to see that this is finally happening. It is extraordinary on one level that it has not happened before now. The President spoke at the Hist. in Trinity last night and pointed out just how significant this visit would be for Anglo-Irish relations and the peace process. Could we have a debate in the new year, perhaps around the time that the President makes this visit, about the ongoing difficulties in the peace process? I am particularly concerned about the proposition made by the Northern Ireland Attorney General, John Larkin, that there be no further inquiries or inquests into murders that occurred before the conclusion of the Good Friday Agreement. The Tánaiste disagreed this morning with that proposition. It highlights the issues that recur in the peace process which is not by any means a smooth process. We need to review it and to consider the obstacles and difficulties that arise.

I congratulate my Labour Party colleague, Senator Aideen Hayden, who will launch the annual report of Threshold, the housing organisation, today. The Senator does Trojan work as chairperson of Threshold. She has made a very important call for a much more rigorous certification process for the private rental market to ensure local authorities certify private rented accommodation and that people would no longer have to live in substandard accommodation. Will the Leader invite the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, to the House to debate that issue and the private rental sector generally and how best to regulate it in the interests of protecting tenants' rights?

I very much support the decision on the Companies (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2013. It is the appropriate decision, but I am disappointed because this is the second time we were scheduled to have a debate on youth justice, which is a critical issue. I have prepared twice for this debate and look forward to it. Will the Leader reschedule that debate at the earliest opportunity? There are many critical issues for us to raise. I support Senator Denis O'Donovan's passionate and compelling call for a debate on fisheries policy.

The special rapporteur on child protection, Dr Geoffrey Shannon, spoke at the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health and Children yesterday. He gave us a master class on children's rights and all that needed to be done and the committee fully agreed with him. He called for a ban on alcohol sponsorship of sport, based on the compelling evidence that he had seen in the review of child deaths that alcohol was seen as a risk indicator. We need to wake up to it as a contributory factor. I support his call. Will the Leader arrange a debate on alcohol-related harm, particularly on how Ireland could introduce minimum pricing in co-ordination with our colleagues in Northern Ireland?

Senator Mark Daly mentioned yesterday the Protection of Children's Health from Tobacco Smoke Bill 2012 that he, Senator John Crown and I have brought forward.

We had an excellent debate on it in the Seanad and I know we have cross-party support. Parallel to this Bill, the Minister announced yesterday he is bringing in legislation on plain packaging on cigarettes, which I support. He has asked the health and children committee to prioritise it and accelerate it through. While I am happy to do this, I am reluctant because we have a Bill sitting on the agenda here that will directly contribute positively to children's health and, for no reason that I can understand, it is being delayed. As Senators Mark Daly and John Crown and I have put a tremendous amount of work into addressing any of the issues raised by the Department, I ask the Leader to urgently ask the Minister when that Bill is to be brought before the House. It is an initiative that could be taken quite quickly to protect children's health.

If it is agreeable to Senator Denis O'Donovan, I second his proposal for an amendment to the Order of Business. The fishing industry has over the entire period of my time in this House been treated with contempt. This is ridiculous and has been a very foolish strategy on the part of all Governments.

With regard to the Order of Business, I agree with Senator Jillian van Turnhout, but I am even more outraged by the situation. It is not just a question of postponing legislation. It is the way this House is treated by the Government. Once again, we have no legislation, and the public sees this and the press may very well comment upon it when there are strange gaps. This is not the fault of the Leader. We had a leaders meeting this morning and it became absolutely clear it is because no Minister was available to take business in this House - not one single Minister. I do not believe the Government has learned the lesson of the referendum. The people put us back here and they said they wanted us to do work. Some of us pointed out that we have worked very hard but we have been hindered continually by the Government. This rotten, undemocratic practice is still continuing. We should not let this occasion go without letting the public know that this is the Government again deliberately obstructing the Seanad and treating it very much as a second-class House.

We spent some time yesterday talking about our allowances and I suggested getting rid of the whole damn lot and giving us a wage for the job, letting it be taxed and all the rest of it. That is what I think should happen. We are talking smallish amounts of money and we now discover that people who are in the public service on €200,000 plus are getting another €40,000 or €50,000 out of the sweet shop. I wonder how many other areas of public life this is happening in. We should look into this matter. In these times we need to look at everything that can be done to create a decent economy.

I would welcome a debate on the remarks of the North of Ireland Attorney General, Mr. John Larkin. It is an extremely difficult situation but at least he has the virtue of telling the truth and facing the facts. It is a huge ask for anybody who has been bereaved in the barbarous events that went on in Northern Ireland to draw a line under it and say we have to put that in the past. However, at some stage, that has to happen. I think the Attorney General is quite wise and speaking appropriately when he points out that, because of the time lapse, it is very difficult to get a conviction, and that because of certain agreements that were made, issues were fudged. For example, when the disarmament of the IRA happened and it destroyed its weapons and explosives, it was part of the agreement that no forensic tests would be done on any of that weaponry; therefore, a huge body of evidence was destroyed which could have been crucial in these matters. Again, in regard to the disappeared - what a horrible word and what a reproach that it should happen in this country to people like Jean McConville who were taken out and savagely murdered - when their families look for their bodies, there is an agreement that there will be no inquest, no autopsy and no forensic report. There is a complete absence of evidence in many of these cases. I believe we should have such a debate. It is an enormous amount to ask and I am not sure how many of us would be prepared to take that, but it would be such a step forward. On the other hand, however, we must continue to demand that the bodies of those who have been murdered and disappeared should be recovered. I believe the Attorney General of Northern Ireland made a series of extremely good, logical points. We have to try to assuage the natural emotions of others, but that is the way forward.