Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 28 May 2024

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, for taking this matter. It impacts on the constituency we share, so I thought it would be good and appropriate to raise it with her. I have been contacted by a parent who is worried about her child’s special language class and is concerned it will not go ahead next year. As the Minister of State will be well aware, this is a fantastic class for children in the area. This child was supposed to attend it for two years but it now looks as though it will be cut in the middle of its first year. The parent has been advised that, instead, the child will be put into the community caseload, which realistically means they will get speech and language therapy for 40 minutes a week for about 25 weeks of the year, when everything is now being done through speech and language therapy. Obviously, this is an issue of great concern for parents who are impacted. Some parents are travelling more than 20 km to get to the school to be able to avail of this class, which will have an impact on being able to avail of the school bus and so on if the matter does not come to a conclusion in the short term. The parent is especially concerned that the further this goes into the summer months, the longer it will take to get some kind of a resolution, given the nature of things is that as we come into the summer months, more people will be on leave and so on.

I thank the Deputy. Enabling students with additional needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs is an ongoing priority for me as Minister of State with responsibility for special education. It is a priority to ensure all children have an appropriate school placement and that the necessary supports are provided to our schools to cater for the needs of children with special educational needs. As the Deputy will be aware, the Department provides an extensive range of supports for pupils with specific speech and language disorder, SSLD. This includes provision for the establishment of special classes for pupils with SSLD in primary schools. There is currently a total of 63 SSLD special classes in mainstream primary schools nationally and they have a teacher-student ratio of 1:7.

The HSE provides speech and language therapy to the students in these classes and, therefore, the opening and retention of an SSLD class is contingent on the availability of HSE resources. For this reason, close engagement and co-ordination occurs among stakeholders at a local level. This issue was raised with me in Galway and I spoke to my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, about the school and the HSE meeting to resolve it. It is critical that it be resolved.

I can confirm the HSE’s local team and school management met yesterday. The purpose of the meeting, which was supported by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, was to allow both the school and the HSE to talk through the issues with a view to working towards reinstating the class for the coming school year. The NCSE has advised the Department that this was a constructive meeting and that all parties are willing to work to ensure the class remains in operation for the coming school year. A further meeting is being planned between all parties. The NCSE will continue to support the school and the HSE to progress matters, particularly in respect of the review of applications for admission to the class. The class has been in operation since 1995 and I hope it can continue to provide much-needed supports for students of the local area. I acknowledge the many years of support provided by both the school staff and the local HSE speech and language therapists for students accessing this class over almost three decades.

In the context of the provision of special education places more broadly, I understand this is an anxious time for parents who are seeking a school place for their child for September and I assure the Deputy and parents that the Government and I are determined to alleviate the pressures faced by parents when seeking a special educational placement.

My Department engages intensely with the NCSE in respect of the forward planning of new special classes and additional special school places. More than 320 special classes have already been sanctioned for the 2024-25 school year. Of these, 19 are located in County Galway. The NCSE continues to sanction some additional classes nationwide for the coming school year. As these classes are sanctioned, the NCSE will support families to make applications for places. I have asked the NCSE to ensure that classes are established as a matter of urgency and to keep all the families seeking class places updated on an ongoing basis to ensure their children can access the provision to which they are entitled.

I thank the Minister of State. I welcome her constructive message and the fact there has already been a meeting. I hope another meeting will resolve this issue. Everybody would like to see this class being set up. Parents are concerned, which is completely understandable. We all know what it is like once we get into the summer months. There are concerns that parents would not get the support at that stage. The reality is that families can see how beneficial this class is for their children. That is probably the crux of the matter. Parents feel it is important to keep support for their children in place. The fact that it was supposed to be available for two years and that it is going to be cut after one year is an issue of serious concern for families. What the Minister of State said is very welcome. I welcome the fact that she is prioritising this matter, is focused on it and is going to keep in touch with the relevant stakeholders to ensure that, hopefully, we get this over the line. Ultimately, we need to make sure that we give our children the best possible future and opportunities to allow them to realise their potential. For the children in question, this is something that has been proven very beneficial.

I thank the Deputy. We are in agreement on the need to resolve this issue. I have full faith that the school and the HSE will come to an amicable agreement. I will ask my Department officials to continue to engage with the NCSE and to monitor the issue. The NCSE is available to support the school and the HSE local team in resolving the issues at play here. The local SENO also has acted as mediator between the school and the HSE in order to try to remedy the situation.

There is a serious crisis in the inshore fishing sector. The sector has been denied the ability to fish for pollock and is questioning the methodology behind that. The price of crab, lobster and a range of shellfish species has either halved or just collapsed. The crisis with shrimp prices is ongoing since last year. The sector urgently needs support. Those in the sector have engaged with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, at a number of meetings. At this stage, the sector is in need of urgent support from the State.

My job as Sinn Féin spokesperson on fisheries involves engaging with fishermen all around the coast. The Minister of State represents a coastal community, so she will understand the issues involved. What is happening all around the coast is quite heartbreaking. We are talking about people in coastal and island communities who have intergenerational experience of fishing.

There has been much discussion about a crisis right across the industry, particularly in the aftermath of Brexit, but I am specifically focusing my comments on the inshore sector. Those in the sector would have been able to fish for salmon in the past; they can no longer do so. They cannot fish for pollock. The option to fish for spurdog has not materialised because of the size of fish people are allowed to catch. It just is not working. The only option the sector had left was that relating to shellfish. I met a fisherman from Wexford recently. He read out a message from another fisherman, and he broke down. He had already told me before that his son has left the sector. This man is the only one in his family who is still fishing. People are going out fishing alone in many instances. That is not safe but they have to do it. As stated, the man in question broke down. I would be worried for the well-being of the other fisherman. That is how devastated these people are about what is happening.

I do not know why this is not being shouted from the rooftops or why the media does not seem to have the interest in fishing, but there is a profound crisis. That has an impact not just on fishermen but also fish processors. When you talk to the organisations that represent fish processors, they will tell you the same thing.

I cannot stress how urgent it is that the Government intervene and try to give the sector some financial support to keep it going. If something is not done soon, I genuinely believe that we will be facing a collapse of our traditional fishing industry. That collapse will start with inshore fishing and move outward. We have already decommissioned another huge percentage of offshore boats. I have spoken to too many inshore fishermen to doubt that this is a profound and unprecedented crisis. The collapse of the shellfish sector is just the final straw. It did not get any support in terms of fuel subsidies and it did not get tie-up schemes after Brexit. I cannot stress how urgent it is to have an intervention. I am seeking confirmation tonight that there will be a financial intervention. If this agriculture was being affected in this way, we would not let it continue. The Government would have intervened before now. Just because the numbers of fishermen are small compared with those involved in agriculture does not mean that we can let a noble tradition die. That is the stage we are at. I am not exaggerating. I have talked to too many people in the sector now and have double-checked what is happening. This is a serious and profound crisis.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. The Minister is very aware of the challenges faced by inshore fishermen. He met with representatives of the inshore fleet recently to discuss them. The European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund, EMFAF, is the primary source of funding for the Irish seafood sector. It provides a budget of €258 million for the programme period 2021 to 2027. The EMFAF regulation is aligned with the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy, CFP, and makes no provision for the fund to be used to compensate fishers for reductions in quota. The EMFAF regulation allows funding to be used to compensate for losses and increased costs caused by market disturbance only where the Commission makes an implementing decision to allow member states to do so. At present, no such implementing decision is in place.

At the meetings of the AGRIFISH Council in December 2023 and March 2024, Ireland and a number of member states supported a request to the Commission to extend the previous implementing decision in relation to the conflict in the Ukraine until the end of this year. The commission has not yet indicated whether it will do so. If we wish to put supports in place outside the EMFAF programme, we are constrained by EU state aid regulations which restrict the type of aid that member states may put in place in the fisheries and aquaculture sector. Again, these do not allow for compensation to be paid in respect of reductions in quota or market failure.

The only EU state aid basis for compensation in respect of the impact of the conflict in Ukraine is the temporary crisis transition framework, TCTF. Section 2.1, which covers fishers, was extended recently until the end of December 2024. However, there are still restrictions on the type of aid that may be provided. For example, it does not allow for fleet tie-up schemes, which is one of the preferred supports requested by inshore fishers. The Minister has explained to the inshore representatives that if we pursue a scheme on the basis of the TCTF in addition to securing Exchequer funding and sanction from the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Ireland would need to have the scheme notified to the commission and the state aid process can take a number of months. It is therefore very uncertain whether we would be able to develop and implement a scheme under the TCTF before the end of December.

I can confirm that the Minister is progressing an inshore fisheries support scheme under the EMFAF. This scheme provides enhanced grant aid rates, between 80% and 100%, to small-scale coastal fishers to support onboard and onshore investments. It will also provide funding for inshore fishers to participate in inshore fisheries conservation measures.

This scheme has been circulated to the EMFAF monitoring committee for adoption, and the inshore groups such as the NIFF, NIFA and IIMRO are members of the monitoring committee. Once it has been adopted, it will be implemented by BIM without delay. Inshore fishers can also access support from the fleet safety and seafood training schemes, both of which are open for applications at the moment.

Department officials are working closely with BIM to identify what additional supports can be put in place within the constraints I have outlined, and I am confident there will be progress on this in the next couple of months. Funding supports alone are not the solution to the challenges faced by the inshore fleet. The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, is committed to ensuring the necessary scientific and technical knowledge and support services, which underpin sustainable and viable inshore fisheries, will continue to be provided by BIM and the Marine Institute.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine and BIM will engage with the inshore sector to develop a successor to the Irish Inshore Fisheries Sector Strategy 2019-2023. This will provide an opportunity to fully consider the challenges facing the inshore fleet and identify measures to mitigate these challenges.

I thank the Minister of State and appreciate that she is speaking on behalf of the Minister for the marine. The response has been drafted by Department of the marine officials on behalf of the Minister and does not capture the urgency. We do not need increased grant aid for onboard and inshore investments. We are beyond that. Somebody is drowning and we are talking about giving them swimming lessons. I am sorry to use the pun, but that is literally what is happening.

In the past, people could have fallen back on pollock to some extent but that is not available. That is what we have done to the inshore sector. Fisheries have not been given the options they traditionally had. They are traditional fisheries and they are being squeezed more and more to rely on shellfish. Eighteen months ago, brown crab was €4 a kilo and it is currently €1.60 or €1.70 a kilo. The price of lobster has halved. The same has happened with oysters and mussels. Of particular concern in the recent past was shrimp; it is now crab and lobster. They are disastrous numbers. There is not enough media focus on this, but one fisherman spoke in a media report recently about the fact you could not give fish away. We will see an industry die and that is an emergency. I do not get the sense that the Minister and Department are conveying to the European Commission the scale of the crisis.

There are global issues. People point to the fact we never really got beyond what happened during Covid or after Brexit. There are so many market disturbances, including the war on Ukraine and so on. I appreciate the Minister of State is not the line Minister, but I want her to convey my message to the Minister. I am sure the officials will watch the debate. This is a profound crisis and nothing in the response tells me that the Department gets how serious this is. As Opposition spokesperson, it is my job to speak to fishermen around the coast. I am telling everyone who wants to hear it that this is an unprecedented crisis and we need urgent intervention now.

I thank the Deputy. I will raise this again with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue. He has met with representatives of the inshore fisheries recently and is very aware of the challenges they face. He is committed to ensuring we identify and explore all avenues available to us in terms of the funding supports that may be put in place for inshore fisheries. In saying that, we as a member state must be aware that while the EU Cohesion Fund provided to our seafood sector is of huge benefit to the sector, there are constraints to how we may use that funding.

As I said already, funding supports alone will not resolve the challenges the inshore fishers are experiencing. There are a range of factors at play in terms of the impacts of the cost-of-living crisis, choices made by customers and the sustainability and availability of stocks. As regards stocks, following the International Council for Exploration of the Sea, ICES, advice, which has meant a by-catch only fishery this year, Ireland is actively involved with scientific research to improve the understanding of pollock. The Marine Institute is taking a lead role in the next ICES benchmark process for this stock, which will be completed in the spring of 2025. While the preliminary results indicate this extra information does not change the perception of the stock, the new model will give a more precise estimate of the state of the stock and improve the short-term forecasts that determine when the target fishery could reopen.

The Minister, Deputy McConalogue, and his officials will continue to work closely with the inshore sector on progressing the measures necessary to support the viability and sustainability of the sector. I will raise this issue with him.