The only option now may be to press at European level for closed areas and complete moratoria on certain stocks, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Spare a thought today for Sean Faherty of Rossaveal, Co Galway, who last year took delivery of the €1.8 million trawler, Glor na dTonn, from a Portuguese shipyard.
Or Gerard Minihane of Skibbereen, Co Cork, whose two-year-old vessel, Deborah M, was built at a cost of €2.8 million in the Armon shipyard in Spain. What might both skippers be thinking this week, as they discharge big loans and watch a vicious battle being fought at European level to meet the growing demand for fish - and cheap food?
This week's visit to Dublin by the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries, Dr Franz Fischler, will have done little to ease their concerns.
At a meeting scheduled to take place before the Nice Treaty referendum, Commissioner Fischler was due to discuss with ministers for agriculture and marine the respective reforms of the Common Agricultural and Common Fisheries Policies. After the furore this week over the Irish Box, one can see why the date was put back.
The threatened abolition of the 50-mile Box, which dates back to Iberian accession to the EU in 1985-86, is just one part of a wider agenda which has dominated fisheries debate at European level for the past four years. The EU's Common Fisheries Policy is due for a review by the end of this year, and its own architects have already admitted that it has failed as a management tool.
Dr Fischler confirmed this also in Dublin, when he described it as "flawed". Instead of managing a renewable resource, the policy had simply bred overfishing, misreporting, and large-scale discarding of fish, he told industry representatives. "This has falsified scientific assessment and emptied the sea of the very asset on which your industry depends."
Significantly, he also said that he did not blame fishermen for this sorry pass. "I acknowledge that pollution and rising water temperatures may play a role too," he said. But "the simple truth is that in the short to medium term, we can only act on fishing, and this is what we need to do."
Warning of "harsh measures" in relation to stocks under pressure, like cod in the Irish and North Seas, Dr Fischler tried to calm political nerves over the Irish Box by saying he was opposed to unregulated fishing there.
However, he also made it clear that he was serious about a legal opinion, prepared for the EU Council, in relation to the zone. This legal opinion challenged the right to restrict access to such sensitive areas - a restriction largely borne by Spain, as owner of the EU's largest fishing fleet.
Dr Fischler denied that the opinion had been initiated by Spain and stressed that it was sought by all member-states. He also took a dim view of suggestions that Spain had already politicised the Commission's attempts at management reform; as in last April's reported attempts by the Spanish Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar, to apply personal pressure on the Commission President, Romano Prodi.
And he had no comment to make on the loophole in the Common Fisheries Policy which has not been addressed in reform proposals, the right of member-states like Spain to buy up and register vessels in other member-states to avail of their fish quotas.
Only recently, Spanish interests have been busy purchasing more than 60 vessels in ports such as Bayonne, to avail of unused French quotas off that coastline. Four of these "flag" vessels reportedly landed the equivalent of the total Irish hake quota within a two-month period on the south-west coast.
Industry leaders here have also warned of the impact on these waters of further restrictions on Spanish fishing activity off north Africa. "Boats which can no longer fish off Morocco need somewhere else to go," the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation's chief executive, Jason Whooley, points out.
Satellite monitoring systems have improved the ability of the Irish authorities to monitor in detail the activity off this coastline, and a pattern has emerged of growing pressure on the dwindling resource in the "protected" Irish Box.Vessels in the 50ft to 80ft category, which form the backbone of the Irish fleet, will be the hardest hit by a stock collapse.
The coastal communities of north-west Spain, where consumption of fish is far higher than here, wield very significant political clout. Spain's fisheries secretary-general, Carmen Fraga, has made it clear that Spain will remain the dominant fleet in Europe. If the European Commission has been jumping to Spain's tune, it is doing so with strong support from some of the larger member-states. Germany, with four million people unemployed, needs cheap food, imports some 85 per cent of its fish and so is very supportive of Spanish expansionist plans.
Irish fishermen are caught in the middle, with 11 per cent of Community waters and just 4 per cent of the catch. Irish proposals for a 24-mile limit to protect the inshore fleet have already been ignored by the Commission, and there is a growing sense of disillusionment around the coastline now about the long-term future. Ironically, Ireland is part of a group of six EU member-states, including Spain, which opposes the Commission's proposals on fleet cuts.
The Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Ahern, has pledged to do what he can for fishermen, as have so many of his predecessors. The reality is that successive governments have never rated the fishing industry as having any future, and this recent administration has presided over a situation which allowed a 144-metre supertrawler (the Atlantic Dawn) the licence to fish in these waters.
The only option now may be to press at European level for closed areas and complete moratoria on certain stocks. And a more honest approach to the issue of fleet size may be to support a compensatory financial package separate from structural funds. This package could allow fishermen under pressure to quit with some dignity, and without loss of life.
TOMORROW: Sean MacConnell, Agriculture Correspondent, on an uneasy calm in the agri sector