NOREEN KING,
Madam, - I fail to see how it is in the interest of conservation to prohibit the Irish in-shore fleet from fishing in our own waters while proposing to allow other EU fleets practically unlimited access.
These EU boats sail all the way from ports in Spain, for example, to shoot their nets across the path of a 40-foot local Irish trawler fishing from his own home port.
It is not love of the scenery that brings them here. They have over-fished their own waters with a criminal disregard for fish stocks there. What makes us think that they will show the future of our industry any more consideration than they did the future of their own?
As it stands, with a 12-mile limit and the "Irish Box", we cannot keep illegal fishing vessels out. If we lose these fragile defences the result will be a fishing free-for-all and a conservation disaster.
An average fisherman fishing out of a port such as Cleggan will never in his lifetime catch the amount of fish that an average Spanish trawler will catch on one trip. We will very shortly be importing our own fish from mainland Europe with the result that the humble cod and chips will shortly become a dish beyond the means of most of us.
Fishing in Ireland should be a source of immense national wealth but it appears that it will continue to be squandered.
I don't know why we are surprised. Fishing communities were sacrificed on the altar of agriculture in 1972 and we are to be betrayed again by a Government too smug, disinterested and craven to fight for our (national) interests as the French and Spanish will most surely fight for theirs. - Yours, etc.,
NOREEN KING, Cleggan, Clifden, Co Galway.