Address to Seanad Éireann by Members of the European Parliament Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-27 ============================================================ Manus Boyle (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach I welcome all the MEPs and thank them for the courtesy they showed me the few times I was in Brussels and for what they have done for the Irish fishing industry. It is good to have a group that comes together and facilitates meetings. I will stick to my brief, which is fishing. How can we get more pressure put on the PECH committee, seeing as we do not have any full-time member? Can we come together as a group, with the MEPs' political groups to see whether we can get reform of the Common Fisheries Policy? It is 40 years old and is not working for Ireland. Will Europe enforce tariffs against the third countries that are overfishing? Something has to be done. We need to get these people in line. Why is Europe taking the cuts when these other countries can fish away and do what they like? Will the MEPs come together as a group and push for the Hague preferences to be reinstated for Ireland? We had the Hague preferences for many years and were thrown under the bus last year. It is totally wrong. A total of 8,000 tonnes might not be a lot to some people, but it is a lot to the people in Donegal, Castletownbere, Dunmore East and all around the country. It is what will keep them afloat. That wee bit makes a wile lot. Can the MEPs come together to do something about the super companies that are operating in Europe? We call them "The Dutch five". They seem to be running the whole show. They have boats flagged in every country and we cannot lay a hand on them. Something has to be done about it. I thank the MEPs again for what they are doing and ask them to keep going with it. We are coming from a low base, but we have made a lot of headway. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-27/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:00+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-05-27