FISHING industry representatives in West Cork told the EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadís that Ireland’s burden sharing needs to be addressed in the review of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The Commissioner was in Castletownbere on Friday to meet with industry representatives on European Maritime Day 2025.
The aim of the event was to bring together industry leaders, policy makers, scientists, and members of the general public.
Ireland’s Minister of State for Fisheries and the Marine, Timmy Dooley, was also in attendance, alongside those involved in catching, aquaculture and processing sectors, as well as members of the Castletownbere Fishermen’s Cooperative and the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation (IS&WFPO).
Deputy Dooley said the decision of Commissioner Kadís to visit Castletownbere reflected his understanding of the challenges facing the Irish seafood sector.
Welcoming the outcomes of the recent EU-UK negotiations by the Commission, which has secured extended reciprocal access for EU and UK vessels to fish in each other’s waters, the deputy said that ‘The outcome is hugely important for the sector.’
However, Patrick Murphy, the CEO of IS&WFPO told The Southern Star that ‘We are locked into a sharing arrangement that everybody agreed was unfair.
‘Ireland is carrying the greatest burden of all the EU member states and the new agreement cannot be changed for 12 years. We have mixed feelings about this,’ he added.
‘We welcome that it does bring an element of stability, but we need the imbalance in the burden sharing corrected in the Commission’s review of the Common Fishery Policy currently taking place.
‘In meeting the Commissioner, on Friday, we explained that the 50-year Common Fishery Policy that is under review needs to take account of the changes due to climate change and Brexit because the situation from 50 years ago no longer applies today.’
According to Mr Murphy, ‘our national fleet of off-shore fishing boats has been decimated over a 20-year period. It has been cut from 400 boats to 140. In addition, our stocks are not in a healthy state with nine of them having a ‘zero catch advice’ by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES).
‘We only have 15% of the fish in our own waters, and our seas are not in a good state, which is the last pillar of relative stability,’ he added.
