FISHERMEN FROM the southeast aim to distribute free fillets in Dublin city centre today as part of a protest over spiralling fuel costs and the impact of State controls on the Irish fleet.
The alleged “heavy handed” approach of Sea Fisheries Protection Authority officers and rising diesel bills will be the main focus of criticism by the group of up to 100 skippers and owners from the southeast who plan to march to Leinster House.
The group of protesters are not supported officially by the main fishing industry organisations, representatives of which held talks with the new Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Brendan Smith, yesterday on issues such as diesel price rises.
However, Chaz Bates of Kilmore Quay, spokesman for the protesters, said that frustration was at such a level that skippers and crew believed they had to demonstrate.
As part of the action, Mr Bates and colleagues will fillet and distribute freshly caught fish to the public, and will then perform a ceremonial “dumping” of a box of fish into the Liffey.
“This is to emphasise the environmental madness of discarding, which is what the European Commission expects us to do under the common fisheries policy,” Mr Bates said yesterday.
Fuel bills are now consuming over 60 per cent of a boat’s gross earnings, and the Irish South and West Fishermen’s Organisation has called on the Minister to establish an immediate task force to examine all options – similar to that already established by Scottish fisheries secretary Richard Lochhead.
Fine Gael MEP Avril Doyle, who is vice-president of the European Parliament’s fisheries committee, said that her group will ask the EU Council of Ministers and the European Commission to take new measures which extend beyond “de minimis aid” for vessel owners hit by fuel costs.
The maximum grant aid allowable under the “de minimis” system is €30,000 which is “paltry” when compared to €300,000 in aid assigned to the agriculture sector, she said.