Irish fishermen and offcials demand fair play in deepwater fishing: it's the Klondike!

摘要

Deepwater fishing was looked upon by the Irish industry as a way of diversifying its fleet away from traditional groundfish and its tough quotas, writes Velo Mitrovich. The Irish Fisheries Board spent several years and millions of Irish pounds on research and, using grant money, commercial vessels were built to take advantage of these unregulated species. But the EU - which awarded the majority of the grant money - is now proposing a tough set of quotas, which are based on country catch records fromthe 1990s, well before Ireland had vessels to go that far out and deep. Irish fishermen are outraged as they see their proposed quota award for the most Iucrative EU deepwater areas - all adjacent to Ireland - at only four per cent of the TAC. In the meantime, while ministers argue in Brussels and vessele treat the area as a free-for-all, Irish fishermen wonder if anything will be left.