Minister slams EU fisheries proposals

MARINE Minister Dermot Ahern said he was totally opposed to fisheries proposals at the start of a five-day meeting in Brussels yesterday.

Scientists say the survival of white fish stocks are in the balance but the fishing industry says EU proposals on how to deal with the crisis are nonsense.

At the same time, Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler has warned that if the governments do not agree to cut back on fishing, he will shut down whole regions of the sea from January.

Mr Ahern's biggest job is to preserve the Irish Box a 50-mile area around the coast from which most Spanish and Portuguese boats have been banned.

But the Spanish say that under the terms of their EU membership they are entitled to fish this area from January and they are backed by the European Commission.

Mr Ahern said the Spanish fleet of 200 boats has no right to come into the Irish box at any time.

"We are vehemently against what is being proposed," he said.

"The difficulty is not around the table here, the difficulty is out at sea."

Jason Whooley of the South and West Fishermen's Organisation said Ireland does not have the resources to patrol the Irish Box.

"There are only five patrol vessels at sea in any one time and this is not enough to cover this huge area," he said.

Irish white fish vessels can spend only 150 days at sea because of weather and any reduction on this would be catastrophic for the industry, he said.

"If we have any reduction we will go out of business. We have an awful lot of boats on a knife edge, struggling to make a living," said Mr Whooley.

The review of the Common Fisheries Policy that includes allocating the amount of fish each country can take from the sea is also being decided at this week's meeting, together with measures to conserve cod, hake and whiting.