Priceless sprat stocks must be saved now, minister

I was outraged as I read an article entitled “Sprat —worthless dead but priceless alive” by Cork Whale Watch skipper Colin Barnes in The West Cork People, my excellent local community newspaper.

I imagine our Minister for Fisheries, Simon Coveney, will have seen it. Now, he must do something. After reading Mr Barnes testimony, how could he not?

“Sprats” Barnes says, “are being taken from the sea in huge amounts, not by foreign vessels, but the biggest and most powerful of Irish trawlers [ . . .] two vessels together pull a single huge trawl, and supported with sophisticated electronics, skillfully aim the net at dense shoals of fish.