Ireland charged with over-fishing in EU report

IRELAND has been accused of over-fishing by the EU, which yesterday published the first Europe-wide scoreboard of compliance with fisheries rules.

It is understood that a tenth of all legal cases pending against countries that break the fishing laws are against Ireland. Despite the country’s fishing quota representing about 4% of the European catch, Ireland is accused of over-fishing in six instances and of failing to provide information on fishing effort.

According to last year’s EU fisheries inspectors’ report, Ireland took more fish out of the water than their quota allowed. This was for just one of the 58 species we are allowed to fish. But there is no accurate information on Ireland’s fleet capacity, identified as one of the key areas essential to controlling over fishing.

The Irish database had major technological problems during 2001 and 2002, the years being reviewed by the EU inspectors. As a result, the information was incomplete and, according to the report, a comprehensive review of data is now underway.

Fish stocks, especially cod, are under intense pressure and there are warnings the stocks could collapse completely.

The European Commission has been forcing member states to cut fish catches and has strengthened its supervision measures. Member states are responsible for collecting the data to prove fishermen are obeying the rules.

The scoreboard is an effort to show publicly who is breaking the rules and to make enforcement more transparent.

Commenting on the report, Fisheries Commissioner Franz Fischler said it showed that countries will have to try much harder to obey the rules.

“It is clear that even if we adopt plans to help conserve fish stocks and reform the Common Fisheries Policy, it will not improve the situation if they are not enforced. Member states must meet their responsibility,” he said.