Minister needs to take lead and protect Irish fish

In a recent High Court decision by Justice Birmingham, it was held that mussel seed in Irish waters is not an Irish natural resource. This judgement has far-reaching consequences for the mussel fishermen in Ireland.

The Irish mussel industry was regarded by BIM and the department as having a bright future and in 2002 had 30,000 tonnes of mussel seed available. As part of the National Development Plan it was anticipated there would be 40,000 tonnes by 2014 and the industry had the potential to create hundreds of jobs as well as make significant contributions to the exchequer. By allowing the introduction of larger fishing vessels into the fleet, the department failed to heed the warnings of fishermen and as a result, over harvesting of the mussels occurred. The High Court heard last year the available seed had dropped to 2,400 tonnes, a far cry from that predicted in the National Development Plan.

Similar concerns are now being raised about our second largest fishing resource, prawn fishing. Despite the introduction of EU-led quotas in the prawn industry, scientists in the Marine Institute are warning of severely low stocks in several key fishing areas, including the Aran Island grounds where they believe prawn fishing should be suspended indefinitely to allow stocks replenish. Fishermen are becoming subject to increasing regulation and the investment in fishing vessels has grown substantially in the last 20 years and much of the investment is funded by bank debt. The main issue causing the depletion of stocks is overfishing and in recent weeks over 30 vessels fishing in the Aran Island grounds were towing four to six nets, effectively cleaning out the area of any stock in three weeks. Those vessels then moved onto the South coast. The use of any more than two nets goes against scientific advice and whilst the problem has been highlighted to the minister, no decision is forthcoming from the department and the problem goes on.