Fishing methods lead to 25% of wastage

Current fishing methods lead to one quarter of all fish catches being thrown away each year.

That was the central issue being discussed at a meeting of key EU fish policy makers in Dublin today.

The meeting was addressed by Minister for the Marine Dermot Ahern who proclaimed: "We need to end this scandal now."

"Unbelievably, 20 million tonnes of fish are discarded annually - either because they are a by-catch of fishing or not the core species being sought or else are juvenile fish," said the Minister.

"This has massive implications for future fishing."

Minister Ahern accepted that over-fishing was part of the problem, but a major cause of fish stocks being depleted was the wastage of fish that are actually caught.

"Taking that amount of fish out of the seas and then throwing it overboard is shockingly wasteful and has to be substantially reduced in the short-term," he said.

The Minister said he hoped that measures adopted at today's meeting would help to re-build European fish stocks and make the European fishing industry more environmentally friendly.

Measures to be taken include the development of more selective fishing gears which will allow more young fish to escape.

The minister added: "The consensus achieved today shows that Europe is prepared to take the lead to tackle this worldwide problem and I am pleased that Ireland was able to convince other European countries to deal with such a wasteful side-effect of the fishing industry.

"We also agreed that no meaningful change would be achieved without the active involvement and participation of fishermen throughout Europe."