More fleet cuts will be sought

European fisheries ministers meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow will be told once again that more fleet cuts are necessary if fish stocks are to be conserved.

However, the Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, is expected to dispute this, when the EU's Green Paper on the review of its troubled Common Fisheries Policy is presented by the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler.

Ireland is arguing the case for technical conservation measures as a more enlightened approach to fisheries management, rather than the crude instrument of fleet cuts alone which are not evenly distributed and are open to abuse and political pressure. The Minister has expressed "delight" at the Green Paper's inclusion of Ireland's proposal on introducing regional management. A strong case for a devolved approach was made in the review carried out here by a strategy group chaired by former IDA chief Mr Padraic White.

Formal proposals on the future of the policy - which Brussels admits is a failure - are not expected to be issued by the Commission until the end of this year, but decentralised management is the Green Paper's most radical element.

Otherwise, no major changes are proposed, apart from the introduction of multi-annual and multi-species total-allowable catches to replace the current annual single-species system forced through in highly political all-night sessions just before Christmas.

The Green Paper proposed that quotas would remain as the main management tool, in the absence of any real alternative. Commenting on the publication, the Connacht-Ulster MEP and member of the EU fisheries committee, Mr Pat The Cope Gallagher, gave it a broad welcome, but criticised the Commission's "fixation" on decommissioning or fleet cuts.