Trawler owners face ‘eviction’ over port authority plan to develop wharf

TRAWLER owners at Waterford port say they face “eviction” within weeks as the port authority presses ahead with plans to sell and develop lands in the area.

As many as 20 fishermen claim their livelihoods have been put in jeopardy by the Waterford Port Authority’s decision last year to put part of the port, along the North Wharf, up for sale. The port authority denies the claim, saying the fishermen are misrepresenting the facts and have had plenty of time to find alternative landing facilities.

The owners of 20 trawlers have been served with notices from the port company and have been given until March 5 to leave. Irish South and East Fishermen’s Organisation chairman Michael Walsh said it leaves members high and dry. “We want the Minister for State at the Department of the Marine, Pat The Cope Gallagher to intervene. There’s not a port in the south-east capable of facilitating the large vessels using this port.

“We want the minister to get involved and negotiate a deal to secure a future for us. We need a landing and a berthing port, until such time as a port in the area can facilitate such vessels.

“We have no alternative but to stay in Waterford port, we can’t leave until another port is available. We can’t bring our boats home and park them in our front gardens.”

The Port of Waterford has strenuously rejected assertions that it is putting the livelihoods of fishermen at risk by proceeding with the sale of its site on the North Quays and at Frank Cassin Wharf in Waterford.

“The fishermen and the relevant section of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources have been put on written notice by the port’s management for some years now that the land is to be disposed of,” said a port spokesperson.

“It is a business imperative that they be sold and asset disposals are common at ports throughout the State. The port has continually encouraged the fishermen, their representatives and the relevant government department to make alternative arrangements for landing fish and it is a misrepresentation of the facts for vested interests in the fishing industry to present the port as being engaged in a course of action that threatens fishermen’s livelihoods. The fishermen have been given ample notice of our plans. There is no onus on the Port of Waterford to provide a commercial fisheries landing site.”