MINISTER OF State for Fisheries Tony Killeen has sought to quell growing anger over a new system for operating the EU’s days-at-sea rule controlling the catches of the whitefish fleet.
Protests were mounted over the issue during Mr Killeen’s visit to northwest ports at the weekend, and the Federation of Irish Fishermen has warned that the new measure is “penalising those who fished less” over the last decade and causing “colossal difficulties”.
“The fishing community spoke very loudly during the Lisbon Treaty referendum last year, and this measure is so inequitable in its design that it is not likely to improve humour if a second Lisbon referendum is held,” federation chairman Lorcan Ó Cinnéide has warned.
The new measure applies to the northwest coast and the Irish Sea and relates to conservation of cod.
The severity of its impact in Donegal, the county with the highest unemployment rate in the State, was emphasised by protesting fishermen and their families, who met Mr Killeen in Greencastle on Saturday.
If conservation targets under the new days-at-sea system are not reached, quotas in these sea areas will be reduced by 25 per cent in successive years, according to the European Commission.
The ruling is being applied on a three-month trial basis from February by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
However, the federation says that fishermen who co-operated in a cod recovery programme over a decade, who applied to decommission vessels, and who effectively “fished less”, are now being penalised, because the days-at-sea allocations relate to historical activity.
“In changing its days-at-sea system of allocation, the European Commission has given no credit to those who abided by the cod conservation measures,” Mr Ó Cinnéide said.
Mr Killeen, who held discussions with the federation at the weekend, said the Government had averted imposition of the measure in the Celtic Sea.
He has also set up an action group, which is expected to hold its first meeting early this week.
“The reality of EU fisheries councils is that you don’t get everything you want. If we had refused to co-operate, this measure would have been applied further around the coastline,” Mr Killeen said.