Indonesian crew members of the UK-registered ship detained in West Cork last week walked off the vessel last night and sought to be put up by Irish officials to enable them to plan for a journey home.

The Workplace Relations Commission detected 157 contraventions of employment legislation in the fishing industry in 2016 including 28 people on boats who were working illegally, it has been confirmed.

A boat was drifting north of the Skellig Michael world Heritage site and its sister island, with passengers on board — just six days after an inspector from the Department of the Marine warned the skipper it was unseaworthy, a court heard.

There have been calls for increased measures to protect migrant workers on fishing boats after an article in The Guardian newspaper alleged some people were working “inhuman hours” and may be the victims of people trafficking.

The Ombudsman has ordered the State to release a detailed report into a salmon farm accident which resulted in one of the largest ever losses of farmed salmon.

A row over the removal of thousands of tonnes of sand from one of the south-west’s most popular beaches has led to calls for a prohibition on its removal from the area.

Tourism interests as well as boat operators who ferry passengers to a Unesco world heritage site are dismayed at the refusal of the OPW to extend the visiting season there.

Massive storm gates will be installed within weeks to protect an island community which was battered by storms last year.

An environmental group is going all the way to the High Court in a bid to secure the release of a Government report into a massive escape of farmed salmon.

Eddie Hobbs (Irish Examiner, November 19) says he wants Article 10 of the Constitution changed. We could never understand the State, through the EU, giving “equal access to a common resource” and so we sought legal advice.

The state agency in charge of the country’s rivers has called on the Department of Agriculture to consider a study which concluded fish farming has a "general negative effect" on sea trout stocks, when deciding to grant permission to a planned 1,000-acre fish farm off the Aran Islands.

Close to €500m of EU funds spent on fish farms was largely wasted, according to a report highly critical of the sector.

A family that was denied compensation from a shortlived Government scheme when a father of eight and his son died off Donegal was the kind of thing expected in a Third World country and not a member of the EU, the European Parliament was told yesterday.

Fears of further erosion damage to the storm-battered Kerry coast were voiced yesterday, including a warning that some houses in the severely-hit Rossbeigh area could be cut off if a road collapses.

A 13-hectare public park in Cork Harbour, with a 3km circuit for walking and running, forms part of a €40m clean-up plan for one of the State’s worst environmental disaster zones.

WHO would have thought a common childhood ailment would lead to the formation of a well-known Irish company and shape two sisters’ lives?

Campaigners against a planned €3.5m fish farm in Bantry Bay have called for Ireland’s sea lice assessment system to be tested.

A global anti-fish farming activist on a tour of the west coast has called for details of chemical anti-parasite treatments used in Irish waters to be made available.

An international activist dubbed salmon farming’s “public enemy number one” is set to boost the campaign against two major fish farming projects off the south and west coasts.

ZONED development landbanks assembled by the Fleming Group over the past decade is coming up for sale in Blarney, Mallow and Clonakilty — and some may sell for little over farm value, and quite possibly to previous farmer owners of the lands.

Up to 7,000 homes in the Beara Peninsula have been targeted by a voluntary group campaigning to prevent the expansion of Marine Harvest’s fish farms in Bantry Bay.

A well-known fish and shellfish processing company forced staff to engage in dubious and appalling work practices, a recent hearing of the Employment Appeals Tribunal was told.

Ireland came last in a report on what EU countries are doing to match their fishing fleet to the amount of fish that can be safely taken out of the sea.

The Department of Agriculture has described as “flawed” a report from the 1990s which warned about the negative effect of fish farms on wild sea trout and, furthermore, denied ever trying to “suppress” it.

A Norwegian fish farming company is seeking to develop a closed container fish farm at buildings which were previously used for the processing of mussels in Bantry, West Cork.

THE dry weather continues and we have Ireland to ourselves.

A Bord Iascaigh Mhara employee was asked to leave a public meeting hosted by a group opposed to a planned €3.5m fish farm.

Residents in West Cork, opposed to the development of a €3.5m fish farm by one of the world’s biggest aquaculture companies, have accused the developers of trying to “buy” the local community “with trinkets”.

A three-day early summer concert and the planned construction of a pedestrian causeway across a harbour will form part of Cork County Council’s €1m plans to turn Spike Island into a tourist mecca.

Salmon and trout stocks in West Cork rivers “are almost gone” due to fish farming around Bantry Bay, according to a former National Parks and Wildlife Services manager.

The flagship boat for a €150,000-a-year Youthreach project has been locked in a boatyard since 2007, writes Investigative Correspondent Conor Ryan

A FAILURE in the opening mechanism of a bridge is blocking access to a multi-million euro marina — backed by state funding.

Conerns about a mini music festival on board the MV Julia Cork-Swansea ferry remained under discussion today.

BALES of barley are being placed in the Lough in Cork to protect the quality of its water this summer.

THE Cork to Swansea ferry has secured its safety certificate and will definitely make its maiden passenger voyage this week.

ONE of the most spectacular beaches in the south west, Rossbeigh, Co Kerry, has been further devastated by winter storms.

OUR grandparents used to tell stories of terrifying storms they had witnessed. Beatrice Coogan wrote a novel about the night of the Big Wind, a legendary storm.

EU fisheries ministers last night agreed a €600 million emergency package for the beleaguered Irish fisheries industry.

The Workers’ Party has said it fully endorses the stand taken by fishermen today as they tie up their boats in protest against the cost of fuel, the size of the percentage they get from fish prices and a number of other grievances.

THE slash-and-burn policy of the Department of the Marine and the proposal to shut the stations on Valentia and Malin Head show the immaturity of the officials, a touching faith in technology and the innocence of a teenager engaged in sporting activity with a Wii simulator.

CORK county manager Martin Riordan has called on private investors to “climb onboard” a council plan to help promote the marine tourist industry.

Eighteen crew members from a French trawler have been rescued off the coast of Co Kerry.

SEVERAL sightings of magnificent fin whales off west Cork, this month, offer further testimony that the area is becoming one of the top whale watching destinations in Europe.

MORE fishermen will die at sea during the coming winter if the Department of the Marine does not take a more “realistic” approach to fish quotas, a national safety conference was told yesterday.