Let’s get real on fishing

Donal Buckley notes the tremendous opportunity created by growth in global demand for seafood.

In particular, he notes that “seafood consumption in China has quadrupled in the last 20 years to become the largest seafood market in the world.”

Some realism is required.

Given our location in Europe and the associated energy, labour, transport and processing costs, Ireland will always be a niche, high cost player.

Global players can produce at significantly lower cost than Irish firms.

It is dangerous to become blinded by the global numbers, as a race to produce as much as possible will be lost, and the legacy will be more finger pointing, grants wasted, jobs lost and a permanently damaged environment.

Alan Molloy

Rathfarnham

Dublin 14