Marine:Lost lives, along with disillusionment with quotas and surveillance, shaped a tragic and difficult 12 months, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
'Something has gone horribly wrong . . . ". There's a certain resonance to the words of British yacht skipper Steve Davis that transcends his own experience of being rescued west of the Kerry coast during the summer after a fortnight adrift. So many "horribly wrong" moments around this island's 5,800km rim have marked 2007 as a year that coastal communities may want to, but can never, forget.
In Davis's case, he was talking about a changing weather pattern and the absence of anticipated trade winds when he and his wife Maria were making their transatlantic passage. Plenty of wind, but far too much pressure of a very different kind, may have contributed to the loss of seven fishermen's lives within hours and miles of each other off the southeast coast six months before.
Christmas decorations were barely down when the two vessels, the Pere Charles and Honeydew II, had put to sea from Dunmore East, Co Waterford, and Kinsale, Co Cork, respectively. Both were taking advantage of a short weather window after one of the most gale-swept winters in years.
The Pere Charles was within several miles of port, dinners were cooking and trucks ready on the quay, when a sister vessel received a short radio message to "stand by" on the night of January 10th. The French-built vessel then vanished off the radar screen.
None of the five on board - Tom Hennessy (32), a father of one originally from the Maharees peninsula in Co Kerry, his uncle and fellow Kerryman Pat Hennessy (48), Billy O'Connor (50), a father of five from Dunmore East, Pat Coady (27), father of one from Duncormick, Co Wexford, and Andriy Dyrin (32), married with one child from Sebastopol in the Ukraine - were to be found. Both Coady's father and grandfather had previously died in drowning accidents.
Within hours of the initial alert, the search had been extended for another missing craft, the Honeydew II. Two of its four crew survived in a liferaft, but skipper Ger Bohan (39) and Polish crewman Tomasz Jagla (32) never made it; their bodies are also still missing. Early the following week, the skipper/owner and his crewman on a third vessel, the Renegade, had to be rescued east of Tuskar Rock - this time, successfully, with the vessel's sinking recorded on camera by Irish Coast Guard helicopter.
When eight Donegal fishermen on board the Catherine R were towed to safety by the RNLI Arranmore lifeboat, it marked the fourth air-sea rescue alert involving Irish-registered vessels in as many days.
It would take the best part of a year for the relatives of the five Pere Charles crew to persuade the State to agree to a salvage, by which time there was little or no chance of finding any trace of the men. The Maggie B, a Ballycotton vessel that sank with the loss of two crew the previous year several miles away, was also raised on behalf of the Coast Guard by Irish Diving Contractors.
Inquiries into the causes of all of these incidents are at various stages, with the Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB), but there is one common thread - the best safety equipment in the world is of limited benefit when skippers and owners coping with shrinking quotas and expanding fuel bills are under pressure from an unworkable Common Fisheries Policy and the banks.
Several studies suggested the true impact of the crisis was being concealed by a steady flight by crews to the construction industry. Increasing dependence by owners on non-Irish nationals was reflected in the fact that two of the seven who died off the southeast were eastern European; other compatriots were involved in further incidents. And two crewmen, a Lithuanian and a Latvian, died tragically in a car accident off Rossaveal pier, Co Galway, earlier this month.
Fine Gael had placed great emphasis on the marine sector's potential throughout last year in the run-up to the general election. In late January, the Government published a €600 million seafood industry investment strategy as part of the National Development Plan. The plan had been promised after the 2002 election, and was finally commissioned after a bitter row in 2006 over new legislation on fisheries monitoring and control, which, it was claimed, would effectively criminalise the entire industry.
The plan, spearheaded by former Irish Dairy Board chief executive Dr Noel Cawley, recommended significant additional restructuring of the fleet. In a veiled criticism of the Government, it referred to the negative impact of an under-resourced Department of Marine (then with Communications and Natural Resources).
The restructuring, in the form of a decommissioning scheme to allow struggling vessel-owners to sell up with some dignity, has been approved by Brussels. However, the "redundancy" can't come soon enough for those disillusioned with increased State surveillance and EU bureaucracy.
Contrary to the Cawley report's advice, the new Government scattered marine responsibilities among five departments; and the critical management of wild salmon, which is the subject of a new ban on drift-netting at sea, is still with the Department of Energy.
Coastal zone management is non-existent at a time of intense pressure on the littoral environment, and foreshore functions are spread across three departments. This is contrary to current EU policy on integrated coastal management, reflected in the recent publication of an EU "blue paper".
HOWEVER, THERE WERE some highlights among 2007's many lows - such as the fact that no lives were lost during the mass capsize at a junior regatta in Dún Laoghaire in July; and confirmation that Galway is to become the first Irish port to host the prestigious around-the-world Volvo Ocean Race for yachts, in June 2009.
There was the ground-breaking European Court of Justice ruling that found the State had neglected to protect shellfish stocks by ensuring protection of water quality; it represented a considerable victory for the Irish Shellfish Association.
Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea promised to buy the Naval Service three new ships. And the International Transport Federation's Irish branch officers Tony Ayton and Ken Fleming did much to highlight abuse of crews on flag-of-convenience ships and other vessels using Irish ports.