The Order of Business is No. 1, motion regarding the Special Committee on Climate Action, to be taken on the conclusion of the Order of Business, without debate; and No. 2, Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017 - Committee Stage (resumed) and Remaining Stages, to be taken on the conclusion of No. 1.

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business that only Committee Stage of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017 be taken today on the basis that while we are broadly supportive of the Bill, we would like to see much more meaningful engagement with stakeholders.

At 11 a.m. an announcement will be made and 17 former British soldiers will hear whether they are to be prosecuted for opening fire on Bloody Sunday. We know that 14 innocent unarmed civil rights protesters were killed on that day. I hope that today the families of those victims get the justice they deserve. In my eyes, murder is murder and there is no way it can be hidden or that it falls under any other act. The Saville inquiry confirmed the troops were sent to the Bogside and that they killed peaceful protesters. This was one of the darkest days of our troubled history and I hope the families of the victims are happy with the determination made today. All eyes will be watching what happens and the decision made by the Crown Prosecution Service.

I commend students throughout the country who will be striking tomorrow to demand action on climate change. This is being done because we have delayed. As politicians, we are not doing our best to ensure there is a reversal of the disastrous effects of climate change. The global strike tomorrow was started by a Swedish 16 year old schoolgirl, Greta Thunberg, who began protesting outside her parliament in Sweden last August. We will not be thanked for our failures and history will judge us poorly on our inaction. I support the schoolchildren throughout the country. We should do more in the Seanad. We should have another debate on climate action and perhaps there are small steps we can take to improve the situation and reverse the damaging effects of climate change.

I second the proposal to amend the Order of Business to take only Committee Stage of the Sea-Fisheries (Amendment) Bill 2017. We could have tabled a proposal that the Bill not be discussed at all today but this is a compromise amendment we are putting to the Government. We debated the Bill two years ago. I have with me detailed submissions made by pretty much all the fishing representative organisations in the State.

They are all opposed to the legislation, as currently presented, but not to the principle of it. They have specifically detailed their concerns. We know the British Government has indicated it is withdrawing within the next few months from the London Fisheries Convention.

The Senator is just reading that out.

A question, Senator.

Everything is in chaos across the water. The Government has not consulted in any meaningful way with these organisations during the past two years.

That is not right.

Nothing was done for two years until last night. No efforts were made to address the fishing organisations' concerns. We will debate the amendments on Committee Stage, but before the Government deals with Report Stage, it must demonstrate it has engaged in meaningful consultation with the fishing organisations who presented to the Oireachtas committee, and whose contributions are all on the record, to address their genuine concerns. We need legislation that will protect the interests of all Irish fishermen across the Thirty-two Counties, around all of our coast. We all want small trawlers around our coast to have access to Irish waters, but loopholes developed over the years which will be reinstated through this legislation, and that is wrong. We need to defend the interests of Irish fishermen around our coast. We also need to defend our natural resources. We have allowed mussel seed beds, our natural precious resource, to be destroyed and lost. We need to reinstate those in a sensible way. I implore the Leader and those on the Government side to listen to the real concerns of fishermen and, in the next few weeks, the legislation could be reintroduced having addressed their concerns.

I support the proposal made by Senators Ardagh and Mac Lochlainn. I will not rehearse all the arguments that we will put forward later on but I agree entirely with Senator Mac Lochlainn's comments. Two years ago the Minister sought to give legal effect to a voisinage agreement that was found to have a weak legislative underpinning in terms of its operation over the decades. It is entirely wrong-headed of any Minister to come into this House and present us with the same legislation he presented to us two years ago and expect it to be passed here today. There has not been any meaningful consultation with fishing representatives, trawler owners or fishing communities on the impact of this legislation. There has not been even one small genuflection in the direction of consultation with the Members of this House who opposed the legislation on Committee Stage in March and May 2017. It is the height of political expediency on the part of the Minister to expect this House to pass this ill-conceived and wrong-headed legislation at this time when we consider this in the context of the UK's Government's commitment to remove itself from the London Fisheries Convention of 1964 and in the context of Brexit, and when we do not know and have no clue what the future of the Irish fishing industry will look like post Brexit, the arrangements that will be in place or what a new Commons Fisheries Policy will look like.

I am prepared, through gritted teeth, to accept and compromise with the Minister that we would deal with Committee Stage today, but I am certainly not prepared and neither are my Labour Party colleagues to see it advance further given the circumstances in which we find ourselves and given the fact, as Senator Mac Lochlainn clearly stated, there has been no meaningful consultation with the businesses and with the communities who will be directly affected by this legislation. The reality is that the only obligation we have in this House and as a sovereign nation is to look after and represent the interests of fishing communities in this country. That is the issue of paramount importance, nothing else, and the Government should not be distracted or deflected from that obligation.

I am in support of the proposal made by Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and Labour Party colleagues that we defer dealing with the legislation or only deal with Committee Stage of it today. We met the Minister in recent days. This legislation was debated two years ago and shelved because of the Brexit negotiations and I do not understand why at this critical and emergency stage in the Brexit negotiations the Minister has sought to bring it on to the agenda today. It is untimely.

We are approaching 29 March.

I would prefer if the legislation was not debated today, but short of that I support the previous speakers who have called for Committee Stage only to be taken today. The reason I call for that is that the Minister has not consulted the industry or the fishermen other than a last-minute phone call last night. We are not prepared for this and neither is the Minister. We are doing the wrong thing with this legislation. As previous speakers said, loopholes have formed during recent years, so the legislation is not robust. To try to shove it in a few hours before the recess and force the legislation through is not correct. I support my colleagues in Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the Labour Party, and as part of the Civil Engagement Group we will be supporting the call either to put off the taking of the legislation or to deal with Committee Stage only today.

Well said.

Hear, hear.

Hear, hear.