Byrne backs fish board's marketing role

The new chairman of Bord Iascaigh Mhara, former Fianna Fáil TD Mr Hugh Byrne, is opposed to any move to strip the sea fisheries board of its key marketing function.

He has also expressed concern about the apparent downgrading of the marine brief within the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources.

"It is absolutely essential for the marine industry that Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) retains its marketing role - particularly at a time when the industry has been pretty badly hurt," Mr Byrne told The Irish Times yesterday.

Mr Byrne, who lost his seat in Wexford in the last General Election, is a former junior marine minister. He was recently appointed to the chair of BIM in succession to Mr Pat Ridge.

"However, I don't want to be given a job and then find that the tools of the trade have been taken away," Mr Byrne said.

The Department of the Marine has confirmed that a "number of options" are being examined in relation to creating a "super food agency" which would market Ireland's food exports abroad. This could involve merging the functions of Bord Bia and BIM, as has already occurred in the case of Bord Glas.

A Department spokesman said that there was "no review" and "no firm set of proposals". However, it is understood that a principal officer in the Department of Agriculture, who is also on the board of Bord Bia, is involved in the examination of "options".

Mr Byrne said BIM was "probably the most successful and professional agency I have ever worked with in politics, and that was before I was appointed minister". Its three key functions are training, developing and marketing of fish products, and its marketing function is "the most successful", he said. Proof of this was last week's Seafood Expo in Dublin which attracted 250 buyers, 50 fish processors and involved some 800 trade meetings.

Marketing fish was a very specialised skill and involved a "very different language" and a very different approach to that taken with other food products, Mr Byrne said. BIM had built up a wealth of knowledge and expertise, and served as a "one-stop shop" for the marine industry. Any segregation of this would be detrimental, he said.

Mr Byrne said he believed the move was part of an approach to sideline the marine industry at official level. In merging communications, with marine and natural resources, the Government had put the marine industry "back to the position it was in" when fisheries was part of the agricultural brief, he said. It would have made far better sense to merge marine with defence, as had occurred in a previous Fianna Fáil administration, he said.