“Good to see you Kilkeel! I would like to welcome everyone who has turned out to our event today. I am Youma, the Social Democratic and Labour Party’s candidate for Lagan Valley and Mournes. Kilkeel is a lovely little town. I've quite enjoyed walking along the coast with some of my friends, though it was quite a bit too cold to go for a swim with the temperatures the past week or so. Our dog didn’t seem to mind going for one though!“

“Now, it is towns like Kilkeel that form major economic centres for rural parts of Northern Ireland, with the harbour here supporting hundreds of jobs ranging from fishing, to processing, to the sale of and servicing of our ships and the physical maintenance of the harbour itself. Residents of the town will know better than anyone else that the wealth and incomes of this community are largely dependent on the harbour being functional, and that any expansion would lead to major economic growth and job opportunity in this area. It is no surprise then that this town has been lobbying for a major expansion of the harbour. These requests have gone on deaf ears however.”

“The SDLP is the only party committed to expanding Kilkeel Harbour running in this election. We will make the full £36 million investment that this community needs to fully prosper, ensuring young people here can find decent, dignified jobs upholding the age old tradition of fishing and support the community they know and love in doing so. The importance of fishing doesn’t end at the individual, after all.” “But this is not all the reforms the SDLP is planning to support fishers here in Kilkeel and elsewhere in Northern Ireland. Indeed, we’ve got an entire new deal to make the best of the possibilities that the fishing industry offers Northern Ireland, and it is likely that a significant chunk of these reforms would be situated in the Kilkeel area. To increase the total economic activity related to fishing in our waters, the SDLP will invest in creating more processing facilities in Northern Ireland with the goal of setting a mandate in the future that fish caught in Northern Irish waters is processed in Northern Irish facilities. As the situation stands today, a significant chunk of our fish is processed in Scotland, England or Ireland instead, meaning communities like Kilkeel end up worse off.”

“Alongside these reforms to processing, the SDLP will implement reforms relating to the capture of fish, and more specifically, who is allowed to catch fish. Whilst there have been some good decisions made in barring larger corporations from fishing close to the coast of this country, we believe that the major reform that is truly needed is redistributing the fishing quota in Northern Ireland from large fishing corporations to independent fishers, cooperatives and small businesses. This means that the profits are shared more equally amongst the people of our fishing towns and increases the total economic activity generated by this industry as these people spend more than a rich executive would have.”

“Northern Ireland’s aging fishing fleet means that we spend more on maintenance for lower catches and thus that our fish end up relatively less competitive than they would otherwise be. That is why the SDLP will work to upgrade our fishing fleet to be more modern, efficient, require less maintenance and less fuel. In doing so, our fleet will be ready to go on for another generation, rather than all nearing the end of their lifespan, and our fishers and towns will be better off for it.”

“In the long term, the SDLP wishes to move to a fully cooperative structure for our fisheries, with fishers and workers at our harbours owning the company in tandem with local communities, and profits being used to benefit all the people living in these harbour towns rather than just a wealthy few. This way we can bring more stability to the economies of our towns, ensure more democratic control of the institutions that they rely on and achieve more community investment coming from the profits made by this cooperative that would control all aspects of the capture, processing, sale and infrastructure related to the fishing industry in Northern Ireland.”

“This cooperative would be unlikely to unduly increase prices at the expense of the people of Northern Ireland, as it would still exist in a global market where millions of tons of fish are caught and sold across the world. It is for that reason that the SDLP would oppose moves to protect our industry by increasing trade barriers. It is not something that would benefit the people of Northern Ireland as a whole. What is likely to happen instead is that the profit margins will naturally increase due to the benefits of economies of scale, whilst our industry is more able to stand up to supermarkets and other significantly larger corporations that seek to achieve rock bottom prices at the expense of the country at large.”

“I will now conclude my remarks. The SDLP is the party that stands behind our fishers the most, with a real plan to bring the industry into the 21st century. We will improve and expand Kilkeel harbour, bring processing back to our shores rather than having it happen in foreign countries, redistribute the fishing quota and upgrade our fishing fleet. All of this will mean a larger, more efficient and more equal industry with more jobs in our towns and real opportunity for your children and grandchildren. These are only the first steps we will set towards a fully cooperative industry where our fishers do what is best for them and this country: working for our communities, bringing wealth to their towns and finally being able to compete with exploitative businesses that harm towns like Kilkeel for the profits of a few supermarket CEOs and shareholders. If you believe in a future for our fishers, vote for the Social Democratic and Labour Party.”