The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, has agreed to meet angry fishing industry representatives next week about the outcome of this month's EU fisheries council.
Efforts are also continuing to arrange a meeting between Mr Ahern and his Spanish counterpart, the Fisheries Minister, Mr Miguel Arias Cañete, about Spain's claim to equal access to the Irish Box from January 1st.
Fishing industry representatives here have called on Mr Ahern, and the Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, to stick to the Irish legal opinion on retention of the 50-mile exclusion zone by ensuring that any Spanish vessels which breach the current 40-vessel limit are arrested.
"We want to see the Naval Service on full alert out there next week," Mr Sean O'Donoghue of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation (KFO) said yesterday. "The navy's satellite monitoring system will give a very clear picture if more than 40 Spanish boats move in to the box area, and we would like to see the Irish legal position enforced."
The Minister has said that he will take the box issue to the European Court of Justice if necessary, but has not made it clear if Spanish vessels in breach of the Irish position will be apprehended.
Industry representatives say that while resort to the European Court of Justice is welcome, it could take over two years, by which time the biologically sensitive grounds would be totally fished out.
The industry believes that the European Commission must take responsibility for the current stalemate.
"The European Commission has walked away from this and left Spain and Ireland to sort this out, because EU Commissioner Fischler couldn't take the hard political decision. And yet he talks about conservation," Mr Jason Whooley of the Irish South and West Fish Producers' Organisation (IS&WFPO) said yesterday.
The IS&WFPO is holding a meeting of members in Cork today to discuss a plan of action on the Irish Box, and the organisation has not ruled out protest action on New Year's Day by angry members.
Also concerned about the Irish Box issue, but also the new restriction on days at sea, are fishermen in ports from Rossaveal, Co Galway, to Greencastle, Co Donegal, who will be directly affected by it.
Mr Seamus Bovaird, co-operative manager in Greencastle, Co Donegal, said that the days-at-sea restriction would hit smallest boats and onshore services hardest. Bigger boats with sufficient quota would relocate, while smaller vessels under 80 feet would not be able to do this and would go out of business, he pointed out.
Mr Sean O'Donoghue of the KFO said that the measure had only been tabled at the opening session of last week's council and was "totally without logic".
He could not see it being implemented by February 1st, as the Commission envisages, but also believes that it requires urgent amendment.
The Minister is expected to meet representatives of the main fishing organisations in Dublin on January 2nd, when the two issues of the Irish Box and days at sea will be discussed.
The industry is also hoping to meet the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, but no date has as yet been set. The Minister had initially offered meetings with his civil servants earlier this week, when the industry reacted angrily to his interpretation of the outcome of the council.
The Minister has pointed out that the days-at-sea restriction could have applied right round the coast, but was not applied to the Irish Sea and Celtic Sea as conservation programmes are already in place there.
In an RTÉ radio interview last Sunday he also claimed that the final deal had been privately welcomed by the industry in spite of its public protest.
The Connacht-Ulster MEP, Ms Dana Rosemary Scallon, has said she is "bitterly disappointed" that the Government has not "upheld the rights of Irish fishermen" in spite of prolonged negotiations and has called on it to ban all foreign vessels from the Irish Box.
"We must ask why it is that Ireland, with 11 per cent of EU waters, is allocated just 5 per cent of the total catch and why, in true EU fashion, an Irish boat, fishing for non-quota species that it unintentionally happens to catch, say monkfish, must dump it at sea," Ms Scallon said in a statement.
