IRISH SEA FISHERIES

That this House recognises the sacrifices made by Northern Irish fishermen since the introductionof cod recovery measures in the Irish Sea in 2000; applauds the results of the pioneering enhanced data gathering programme involving fishermen from Northern Ireland working with fisheries scientists, which has shown discards of cod to be as low as two per cent. in the Irish Sea; but further recognises that total allowable catch levels advocated by the European Commission and agreed at the December 2010 EU Fisheries Council will reverse this positive result; and congratulates Northern Irish fishermen and fisheries scientists for their continuing efforts in identifying modified fishing gear designed to further reduce discards of a variety of commercial fish stocks, while highlighting the failure of centralised EU fisheries regulations that prevents such modified gear being deployed by the fishing fleet.