Ireland’s leading maritime newspaper covering the Coastal, Fishing and Maritime Communities

MARINE TIMES NEWS October 14th:
Ireland Seen As a ‘Soft Touch’ by the EU and European Fishing Nations

Ireland has been seen as the ‘soft touch’ by other European nations and the European Commission which have exploited and damaged our fisheries resources. That can no longer be tolerated.

This was the general view of the Chief Executives of the major fishing producer organisations who met the Oireachtas Committee on Fisheries and the Marine on Tuesday, October 14, at Leinster House.

Their view was agreed with by TDs and Senators, members of the Committee and was later endorsed by Fisheries Minister Timmy Dooley when he met the Committee in a separate session.

“It cannot be a business as usual approach at the EU,” he said. “The current situation where Ireland is suffering cannot be allowed to continue. There must be change.”

Minister Dooley said there would be difficulties in getting a better situation for Ireland, “because we do not have a veto and must build up relationships with other nations.”

That will be difficult, but the situation of the industry is critical, as outlined in the recent Marine Times about the mackerel issue.

“The nation, the government, has not defended our fishing industry,” said Sinn Fein’s Fisheries Spokesman, TD Padraig MacLochlainn. “Our fishermen, our industry, our coastal communities have been abandoned, while other nations have used Irish waters to make catches from which Irish fishermen are barred from making by the Common Fisheries Policy operated by the European Union. The fishing industries of those nations are benefiting from Irish waters while our own industry is suffering.”

There have been a number of meetings between sectors of the industry and the Oireachtas Committee over recent weeks, highlighting the serious economic situation because Irish boats are tied up in port, with insufficient quotas to catch fish, processing factories are facing cutbacks as a result, while other EU nations are building new boats and their industries developing, much of that based on catches made in Irish waters, which are extensively bigger than the EU allows to Irish boats.

If the Irish fishing industry is to survive, the situation must be changed, but the nations which control the largest catches, made in Irish waters, are unlikely to give way to Ireland gaining bigger quotas in its own waters.

The core of this problem is the original agreement made by the Irish Government for entry to the then EEC Common Market, when priority fishing rights for Irish vessels in Irish water was ceded to EU control and quota decisions then dictated by the bigger EU fishing nations.

The Chairman of the Oireachtas Committee, Conor McGuinness, told Minister Dooley that the government must take a “more assertive approach to the EU and stop being regarded as a “sof touch.”

“This is a real test of the sovereignty of this nation about which there has been a lot of talk, but about which more action is needed,” he said.

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