Madam President, I propose to vote against this afternoon because I still believe passionately that there is no urgency about this. I say that based on the report which came from Brussels yesterday that the Council of Ministers require further scientific evidence but we here believe that is not necessary. It is a bad day for the common good, it is a bad day for maritime regions and it is a bad day for the fishing industry. We even had an opportunity to go back to committee to talk about compromise but we were not prepared to do that because some people took up entrenched positions here.

The question of conversion is not possible as far as the drift-nets of Ireland, Britain or France are concerned. We want to ban drift-netting today and Members of this House will tell us in a number of years or months that we should ban fishing altogether. We are only hitting the tip of the iceberg here. I want, in the presence of the Commissioner, to say that I understand that some of the Commissioner's own staff of Spanish origin have contributed to the ....

(The President cut off the speaker)