Fishermen in court bid to block quay eviction

FISHERMEN opposed to the sale and development of a key stretch of quay in Waterford are today seeking a High Court injunction to prevent their eviction from the site.

The 20 fishermen who use the North Wharf, owned by the Waterford Port Authority, say their livelihoods are put in jeopardy by the decision last year to put part of the port along the quay up for sale.

Developers O’Brien and O’Flynn are drawing up plans for the site.

They fishermen will be in the High Court today, asking for an injunction to prevent the port company from moving them out of the area until such time as an alternative site is found for them nearby.

While neither side would comment on the court proceedings last night, it is believed that today’s hearing will be just another in a series of bids by the fishermen from the south-east to prevent the development of the site until alternative landing facilities are found for them.

The owners of 20 trawlers were served with notices at the start of the year and were given until March 5 to leave. Irish South and East Fisherman’s Organisation chairman Michael Walsh said it leaves members high and dry.

“We want 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 which will 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; we can’t leave until another port is available.

“We can’t bring our boats home and park them in our front gardens,” he said at the time.

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

“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 of Waterford as being engaged in a course of action that threatens fishermen’s livelihoods. The fishermen have been given ample notice of our plans.

It should be stressed that there is no onus on the Port of Waterford to provide a commercial fisheries landing site.”

Denis O’Flaherty, of O’Flaherty Brothers Fish Processors says as many as 150 jobs in his company are being put on the line by the proposed sale.