'On its knees' West Cork fishing industry needs government supports

Fishing trawlers are tied up, fish factories are processing less, and one shop selling fresh fish has closed because of supply difficulties

Boats tied up at Union Hall pier: Cork county councillors called for the Government to subsidise the fleet’s fuel costs as they can’t compete with French and Spanish counterparts, who are getting financial help from their respective governments. Picture: Denis Minihane

Some fishing trawlers have tied up in West Cork because they can’t afford to go to sea due to rising costs of fuel.

As a result, fish factories are processing less and one shop selling fresh fish has closed because of supply difficulties.

Standing orders were suspended at a Cork County Council meeting on Monday as councillors debated the crisis. 

They called for the Government to subsidise the fleet’s fuel costs as they can’t compete with French and Spanish counterparts, who are getting financial help from their respective governments.

Fianna Fáil councillor Joe Carroll said the French are providing a 30c a litre fuel subsidy to their trawlers and the Spanish 20c a litre. Irish fishermen get just 2c a litre subsidy.

Mr Carroll said he’d been talking to one trawler owner who is going to sea and it cost him €42,000 to fuel his boat for a 14-day trip.

“That’s an awful ball of money and they may have a bad outing. The crew will be down €1,600 in wages as a result of the fuel price rises,” Mr Carroll said.

The French and Spanish fishing are getting massive advantages already without the subsidies their governments are now giving them.

He claimed it is "ludicrous" that Belgium, with a 41-mile coastline, has better fishing quotas in some cases than Ireland, and quota systems have to be revised by the EU.

Mr Carroll, Fianna Fáil councillor Patrick Gerard Murphy, and Mayor of County Cork, independent councillor Danny Collins, said they all knew of trawlers which weren’t going to sea as a result. 

They expressed concern that jobs in the fish processing industry could also be lost.

“Brexit was a real blow to them in the first place. Now this is crippling the industry,” Mr Murphy said.

“You can go out some weeks and get nothing. What’s left over after fuelling the boat is the wages. The more the fuel costs the less the owner, skipper and crew get. 

“The French and Spanish are at a far more competitive advantage and as a result a lot of our boats are tying up because of the cost of fuel.” 

“The fishing industry is on its knees in Castletownbere and Union Hall,” said Mr Collins, who maintains there should be a minister dedicated solely to fisheries.

I’m hearing from fish factories that they can’t get the fish at the moment. I’m worried they'll lay off people if this continues.

He said that Patrick Murphy, chief executive of the South & West Fishermen’s Association, is doing his best to highlight the problems facing the industry at present “but it’s just falling on deaf ears”. 

Independent councillor Mary Linehan-Foley said her son-in-law, a fisherman in Youghal, is also struggling because of the rising costs.

“The Government needs to step up to the mark and follow what the governments of France and Spain have done,” she said.

“The way it is, the fishing industry will be gone in the next decade,” West Cork-based Fine Gael councillor Caroline Cronin said.

Fine Gael councillor Kevin Murphy said the fleet operating out of Kinsale “is screwed to the wall".

“The cost of diesel has gone stark staring mad. Support needs to come quickly if they're going to survive,” he said.

Councillors agreed to write to the government and to all the country’s other local authorities seeking them to lobby on the issue.