Minister welcomes EU fish deal while environmental group claims he has 'failed abysmally'
Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Michael Creed has hailed an EU agreement on next year’s fish quotas, while the deal has been condemned by environmental NGOs Birdwatch Ireland and Our Fish.
Mr Creed said that securing agreement on rebuilding measures in the Celtic Sea was “one of the most difficult aspects” of the negotiations, and the total package agreed is 195,000 tonnes – worth €275m for the Irish industry next year.
Increases in key stocks include mackerel (41% increase), haddock (+30%), monkfish (+7%) and megrims (+3%) in the Celtic Sea.
Mr Creed said Ireland’s second most important fishery, prawns, has been reduced by 15% in accordance with the scientific advice “due to the decline in stock density in some important prawn beds”.
Some stocks such as cod and whiting in the Celtic Sea remain in very poor shape and at this Council agreement was reached on the introduction of significant additional safeguards designed to rebuild these stocks.
"Measures to protect cod and whiting “were trialled by our experts in BIM and the Marine Institute, working closely with our fishing fleet.
“By taking these necessary steps now, we can rebuild the stocks in our Celtic Sea fisheries and avoid the need for closures,” he said.
He said that for 32 of 47 target stocks of interest to Ireland, the quotas for 2020 were set at or below the scientific advice where available, meeting maximum sustainable yield criteria.
Restrictive quotas were set for four vulnerable stocks of interest to Ireland, while very small quotas for three depleted herring stocks were set to allow for collection of scientific data.
However, EU fisheries ministers have been criticised by NGOs, including Birdwatch Ireland and umbrella group Our Fish.
Our Fish accused ministers of continuing to prioritise economically important species over vulnerable non-profitable species, and was critical of the failure to introduce monitoring at sea to ensure ending of discards.
Our Fish said a preliminary assessment of available information suggested that a number of all total allowable catches (TACs) have been set above scientific advice, including several vulnerable cod stocks such as west of Scotland and North Sea and southern hake.
Birdwatch Ireland said that EU ministers, including Mr Creed, had “failed abysmally to meet the EU’s legal deadline to end overfishing” by 2020.
“Both the Irish Government and the European Parliament have declared a climate and environmental emergency. This is just another example that EU leaders neither comprehend the scale of the existential crisis we face or have any intention of doing anything about it,” it said.
“While Minister Creed will say that meeting the 2020 deadline was too great a challenge due to the poor state of many stocks, the reality is that he has played a significant role in creating the situation.
Ireland has one of the worst records in the EU at driving overfishing.
“The Celtic Sea Herring fishery had to close this year due to the state of the stock and there are no signs it will open next year. While the minister has argued that he has been fighting for the interests of the fishing industry, the facts are that overfishing is costing jobs,” it concluded.
