Fishermen left to sink or swim

I WISH to highlight an obvious injustice that is taking place in coastal communities all round the country as our fishing industry is now in what seems like terminal decline.

In fishing villages and towns, jobs are being lost at an alarming rate.

These job losses are not being recorded in official unemployment figures because most of the men who work in the offshore fishing industry are classed as self-employed.

Although their jobs have disappeared, they have no right to register as unemployed and find it virtually impossible to receive social welfare payments. This is causing financial hardship for many families.

The reason for the decline is probably a mixture of incompetence by past governments dealing with Brussels and mismanagement within the industry itself.

Irish governments have never faced up to the fact that we live on an island and the waters that surround it are rich in natural resources.

We need only look at what happened to the oil and gas reserves off our coast. Something similar has happened to our fishing industry in what was probably an even bigger giveaway. French and Spanish fishing vessels are now allowed to take more fish in our waters than the Irish fleet.

What politicians and civil servants seem to forget is that fishing played a huge part in our country’s economy in the past, keeping it going during the recessions of the 1980s.

A lot of men lost their lives working at sea in this industry, which has some of the worst working conditions imaginable. For civil servants in well-paid jobs and air-conditioned offices to tell these men they are not entitled to any form of financial support during difficult times is a damning indictment of the way the country is run.

These men should be given the recognition they deserve and get their full entitlements in addition to retraining schemes. Access to further education should be another option.

This is a national disgrace known only to people in the communities affected by it. Most people outside the fishing communities don’t know what officialdom is doing in their name.

Patrick J Fitzgerald

Leperstown

Dunmore East

Co Waterford.