“Irish South and West Fishermens Organisation Representatives travel to Brussels for December Council of Ministers”

Representatives of the Irish South and West Fishermens Organisation (IS&WFO) are travelling to Brussels today for the December Council of Fisheries Ministers, which will take place from the 20th to the 22nd of December. As always this will be a crucial few days in the Fisheries calendar as the Total Allowable Catch and national quotas will be agreed for all fish species. In addition, other fishery management proposals will be debated and voted on.

According to Jason Whooley, Manager of the Irish South and West Fishermens Organisation, "The quotas that will be agreed at the Council are crucial for our members as they will determine our fishing opportunities for the next twelve months. We welcome the fact that the Commission have recommended increased quotas for critical whitefish species in our area such as Monkfish and Hake. The proposals for these quotas are to increase by 11% and 3% respectively. However, we are concerned that decreases of 10 to 15% have been recommended on Celtic Sea Herring, Whiting and Prawns. We feel that the scientific advice on these stocks is not matching with what our fishermen are seeing on the fishing grounds. We are counting on Minister Pat "The Cope" Gallagher to secure improvements on these proposals."

The Commission proposal to ban gillnetting in waters deeper than 200m is also a priority for the IS&WFO. Mr. Whooley had this to say, "This fishery which is carried out by an almost unregulated fleet of foreign vessels is causing serious damage to whitefish stocks off the Irish coast. A recent European report highlighted unacceptable aspects of this fishery including huge levels of discarding of fish and the dumping of large amounts of unwanted fishing gear. These practices are unsustainable and must be stopped."

19th December 2005