Young men of the sea

It's a tough and often dangerous job, but the challenges facing fishermen don't end when they land their catch. They face ongoing battles over quotas and dissatisfaction with the EU's fisheries policies. Marine Correspondent LORNA SIGGINSmeets some of the stalwarts of the Irish fishing industry

HE WORLD’S WILDEST surfers know it, and so do ocean-energy experts analysing the megawatt potential of our Atlantic margin. Yet do we ever wonder why fishing skippers rarely talk about how dangerous their workplace off this coastline is?

That Atlantic is getting rougher, and “rogue” waves are occurring more frequently. Yet perhaps it is because the risks are far more subtle, far more extensive than those shown on weather charts, that safety becomes just one challenge.

“Being at sea can be the easy part,” says one seasoned catcher, for that last frontier for wild-caught food requires a very special type of hunter – one whose expertise ranges from seamanship and survival, to familiarity with EU politics, with changing consumer tastes, and with the inequitable application of the shoreman’s law.

Ross Classon (45) had little idea that it would demand such a varied skillset when he took to the sea as an optimistic young Dubliner back in the last recession of the 1980s. He had no family background in fishing, and yet within a few years he was earning more than his father, Michael – then principal of Newpark secondary school in south Dublin.

It wasn't the money that attracted him, but the pull he had felt from the age of 12, when he began catching salmon on family holidays in Rosbeg, Co Donegal. He was still in school when he got his first half-decker, Naomh Seosaimh, and then pursued gill netting and seining (a method of fishing using weighted nets) off the south Donegal coast with friends Pat Johnson and Cathal Boyle.

His career took a leap when he was enlisted by Mick Doyle to catch black sole on a beam trawler in the Irish Sea. Doyle, originally from Redcross in Co Wicklow, was one of the successful group of young fishermen nurtured by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), who pioneered the seedling mackerel fishing industry in the 1980s.

“Beam trawling opened up a whole new world for me, in that we moved around,” Classon recalls. “We could be picked up in Dublin, or find ourselves flying to Newlyn on Cornwall, and we’d be working off the Scilly Isles.

"I learned a lot, and during my time in Newlyn I took an interest in the fishery for crab with vivier boats which had been developed there," he says. This led him to apply for grant-aid for his own crabber, which was built in Holland in 1993. The Ainmirearrived home to Donegal to great celebrations with the Classon family, including Ross's spouse Anna and four sons.

The next 17 years were spent plying the rough, tough grounds between Mayo’s Stags of Broadhaven and Tiree in Scotland, developing a successful non-quota fishery. It was gruelling but often rewarding work.

“We’d fish seven days, coming in on a Monday morning and going to sea again on Monday evening, with Anna coming to meet us wherever we were with food and supplies. We’d have to navigate our way between Norwegian and Spanish longliners and French trawlers, all working on much bigger quotas than the Irish for whitefish.

“The Norwegians, not even in the EU, would be fishing 150 miles west of Galway, up to the outer Hebrides, discarding fish that they didn’t want – right on top of our gear sometimes. Nobody was monitoring them – it was scandalous,” Classon recalls.

He and his son Christopher were among five crew on board some 50km south of the Scottish Butt of Lewis when the Ainmirebegan taking in water on April 30th of last year.

"RTÉ was reporting the sad news about broadcaster Gerry Ryan, while BBC Scotland had it that the Ainmirewas sinking – I'll never forget it," he says. "I heard the bilge alarm go off, and then again, and I got up to find the engine room flooded, and there was no way of stopping it. It happened so quickly, and then she was gone.

"I find even saying the words 'she is gone' shocking," Classon says, remembering how the life raft didn't quite release the way it should, and how they were all rescued by a vessel close by, the Our Hazel. The Ainmirewas taken in tow to Stornoway at first, with young Christopher in the wheelhouse. The hull never made it to port: Christopher was taken off just before it disappeared beneath the water.

Classon has been trying to piece his life back together, with no social welfare net to fall back on as he was self-employed. “It has taken its toll on me and my family,” he says. “This was not the future I had planned. Christopher was working with me, learning the ropes.”

His son is now working as a troubleshooter with an oil company in Alberta, Canada, while Classon himself has been busy updating his various certifications to allow him to work on seismic survey vessels, or with the developing offshore windfarm industry.

Ironically, his fortunes have changed at a time when a new government is promising a much more enlightened approach to the marine sector; the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs Maria Damanaki is promising all sorts of management reforms, and there is significant recovery of some key whitefish stocks in these waters.

However, stock recovery is a mixed blessing for skippers, who believe Ireland will never receive fair quotas from Europe. They also believe quotas are not evenly monitored, and never will be while the EU’s control agency is based in the Spanish port of Vigo. “Like having the Department of Justice in the middle of Mountjoy jail,” as one skipper says.

The Irish are not alone in their views. "Whether you are Irish, British, French, or a fisherman from another EU country, we are all getting the same kamikaze treatment from the European Commission, which manages the sea as though it were an aquarium plugged into a computer," one French skipper, Oliver Lepêtre, noted in an interview with Fishing News.

This small island, with some of the richest grounds in blue Europe, now employs more fishery officers, both inland and on the coast, than there are vessels over-12-metres in the fleet, and spends almost as much on monitoring and control as it derives from landings. Margins barely exist for those that do land their catch successfully. Fuel costs have been rising, and imports of cheaper fish from non-EU countries have been flooding the market.

The enthusiastic fish eater is often misled. A recent Food Safety Authority of Ireland investigation found that 19 per cent of cod and haddock samples taken from shops, restaurants, pubs and takeaways had been mislabelled – with takeways being the worst offenders. An empty box spotted by this writer recently on a windowsill close to a well-known hostelry in Galway spoke volumes – “pangasius fillets, Vietnam”, it read.

Pangasius is a catfish which is intensively and sometimes questionably farmed in Vietnam, and passed off as cod or simply “whitefish” to non-discerning consumers in both supermarkets and restaurants. Last year, Europe imported some 668,000 tonnes of the catfish. Filled, skinned and panfried, it can sell frozen for $3, or €2.08, per kg.

Classon doesn’t believe all the blame lies with Brussels. He is critical of an Irish bureaucracy that says “no” to every new idea. Under EU regulations restricting fleet size, young entrants have to be in a position to buy tonnage equivalent to the size of boat they intend to fish. The myriad rules are daunting, and the “attitude of those enforcing same is the worst part”, he says. When he proposed a State “pool” of tonnage for new entrants, he was ignored.

“We should be a team, working together to develop one of the most important sovereign resources we, the Irish people, have,” he says. “We should be asking ourselves how can we build coastal communities – not looking to find reasons to shut them down. There is no strategic thinking, no forward planning, no visible team work, unlike the situation in the US where officials know how to manage a fishery and work with the industry.”

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Simon Coveney is not promising anything. “I’m open to any idea, such as that suggested by Ross Classon, though I’m not promising I’ll agree,” he says. “I have to strike a balance between our available quota and fishing effort, but fishermen in the industry know better than anybody in the industry, including policymakers and scientists, when it comes to finding solutions to certain issues. I’m keen to listen to them.”

Classon’s evident frustration was also voiced by Killybegs former skipper and vessel owner Martin Howley at a recent conference with MEPs in Sligo. He outlined passionately how he had seen both fish stocks and coastal communities deteriorate over the past decades of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy. Howley singled out discards of top-quality fish – as highlighted in recent media campaigns – as the “biggest indictment” of that failed management. EU rules force fishermen to discard fish for which they have no quota on a particular day.

"Fishermen have been at their wits' ends for years trying to get the message across about this growing problem," Howley said in the Marine Times."Many articles have been written, and everyone agrees – how could throwing top quality fish back into the sea ever be considered an effective tool in conservation?" Fishermen's pleas had "fallen on deaf ears for many years", Howley said, but "the moment a celebrity TV chef raised the issue everybody pricked up their ears."

“Food writer Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is right – discards are immoral,” says one marine scientist who is sympathetic to the catchers’ dilemma. “The Irish industry has been trying to bend the European Commission’s ear for the past 15 years about the need to tackle the cause, by avoiding catching unwanted fish in the first place through square mesh panels, larger mesh and other technical conservation measures.

“These solutions don’t make for great television though, and you have a situation where unsustainable practices of a few are blamed on a whole profession . . . even those who are tied up because there isn’t sufficient quota in the first place. The ban, as proposed by commissioner Maria Damanaki, is an oversimplified solution to a very complex problem that her administration has caused.”

Stephen McHale Fisherman, Co Mayo

Fishermen are nothing if not flexible, and none more so than Mayo skipper Stephen McHale of Belderrig. When drift-netting for wild salmon was banned almost four years ago, his future looked very uncertain, after almost 40 years at sea.

Small enough compensation was awarded at that time to driftnet licence holders, who were subject to tax on the full amount, and who had little alternative employment apart from part-time shellfish potting. However, for the past three years McHale has found a new career hand-catching mackerel on his 30ft boat, Eileen's Pride.

“It’s a lovely fishery, the migratory stock swims half a mile from shore at times, and the quality is great,” he says. “The season starts in May and continues till October. We go out at 4.30am, and we set up the jigging machines, which catch the fish individually. It’s low impact, and I don’t suppose we’d put any big supertrawlers out of business.”

“It’s one of the roughest stretches of the north-west coast here, with no all-weather harbour between Galway and Killybegs, and we are governed by the tide,” McHale says.

“We are only permitted to land 500kg, which is about 14 boxes, so we are in and out every couple of hours. It makes it a bit difficult when you are trying to arrange transport as the vans will only come for a minimum of 30 to 40 boxes.”

McHale’s boat is among a number of vessels currently being assessed by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) for certification as a sustainable passive fishery, with built-in traceability. BIM has been working with fishermen in all sizes of boats and ports to develop quality-assurance schemes based on the ISO 65 standard.

These schemes are broadly similar to those of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), BIM points out, as both are built on the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation code for responsible fisheries. MSC is a privately-owned assurance mark, whereas BIM’s standards are “public property, held in trust for the benefit of the Irish seafood industry and consumers” of same.

Stephane Griesbach, Gannet Fishmongers

French fishmonger Stephane Griesbach is a man after Martin Shanahan’s heart. Shanahan, owner of Fishy Fishy restaurant in Kinsale, Co Cork, has attempted to “take the fear out of fish” for television viewers. Griesbach has had the same impact on hundreds of visitors to his various weekly market stalls in Galway city and county.

He is on the G hotel’s food supplier list, along with the Roberts family’s Connemara Smokehouse and abalone farmer Cindy O’Brien in Rossaveal, and the city’s best restaurants rely on his good judgment. Griesbach knows his hake from his haddock and his well-iced market displays reflect the close relationship he enjoys with the Aran Island and Rossaveal fleets.

The deepwater Bluemouth, a relative of the scorpion fish family caught by the Rossaveal vessel Maria Magdalena III,was among his recent exotic offers. "How about some sand sole?" he says, explaining where the fish likes to live, how it tastes, and how it can be cooked.

In Britain, demand for alternative fish soared in some supermarkets after the Channel 4 Fish Fightseries, but Griesbach has found Irish west coast buyers to be a mite more cautious.

“There’s been a little change,” he laughs. “After all, I nearly had to give away silver hake in Ballinasloe when I first supplied it there, but now it is going very well. Some people will walk away if there is no cod, even if I have whiting and haddock. But then you’ll have people who will try dabs and whelks, and the recent campaign on discards has given us a good argument for pushing other fish.”

His biggest seller in the Galway market is still a farmed species – Clare Island organic salmon – along with mackerel and cod. He finds the market buyers to be a lot more adventurous. “I’ll sell 2kg of turbot a week in the shop in Eyre Square, but up to 20kg in the market if the price is right.”

His multinational clientele at the market often contribute to the dynamic – thanks to two Iberian purchasers, I found myself cleaning octopus tentacles last Saturday, having gone in search of hake. “Put a cork from a very special bottle of wine in the water, and absolutely no salt,” advised a Portuguese man, while his friend from Galicia, who had been chatting away to him in Gallego, listed off all the herbs that draw out the taste in the cephalopod mollusc.

Griesbach is well aware that the Irish are spoiled by too much good grass. “The Spaniards will eat every bit of a fish – they’ll prefer to buy it whole, and eat even the head. That way, their fishermen sell more weight. It’s a very different relationship with the sea.”

Simon Coveney, Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine

The new Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Simon Coveney politely corrects anyone who leaves “marine” out of his title. His father, the late Hugh Coveney, was regarded as one of the best ever ministers for the marine during his short time in that office. Coveney is a round-the-world sailor, who grew up with the sea while also studying agriculture and working in farming before he took to politics.

He is familiar with the issues, has experience of the European dimension and prefers to look forward rather than back. That hasn’t stopped him initiating work on one of his party’s key election promises to reconstruct the former Department of Marine, initiated by former taoiseach Charles J Haughey and demolished by another former taoiseach, Bertie Ahern.

“I firmly believe we have opportunities in marine, and I’m actually really interested in fishing,” he says. “We recorded a 15 per cent growth in seafood exports last year,” he adds, reaching a value of €379 million in 2010, and with France, Spain and Britain being the main markets. The Irish seafood industry is worth more than €700 million, according to BIM.

He understands fishermen’s frustration with many issues, and remembers trying to raise the issue about fish discards at EU level when he was a member of the European Parliament from 2004 to 2007. “The practice is particularly immoral when we are importing some 70 per cent of fish from outside the EU,” he says.

However, he also believes the issue is not just about ensuring more equitable, if also sustainable, quotas for the Irish fleet, but about “adding value” and encouraging landings of non-Irish caught fish, which could then be processed here. He warns that there are some “significant external threats” that demand unity from both politicians and the industry – specifically, the EU proposal for a system of single or individual transferable quotas, which would allow major players such as Spain, Holland and France to buy up entitlements to fish in Irish waters.

“We’ve already seen Spain buying up quotas on the west coast of England, and not a fish lands into any of those ports now. I’d be very protective of Ireland retaining its national quota and ensuring that this is still a viable industry for families right around the coast.”

Siubhán Ní Churraidhín, Shore inspector, SFPA

IT MIGHT BE collecting a discarded gill net, it might be harvesting marine litter, or it might be taking records of a rare species of fish. Catch inspections are just a part of a day’s work for Siubhán Ní Churraidhín of the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) in Rossaveal, Galway.

Ní Churraidhín is one of a number of shore inspection staff who don’t quite fit in with the SFPA’s somewhat unpopular image along the coastline. As with colleagues Kevin Flannery in Dingle, Co Kerry, and Declan Quigley and Declan MacGabhann on the east coast, she is passionate about marine life, and she has fished since the age of 10 with her father, Nicky Antaine Ó Curraidhín, from their home port of An Spidéal.

A marine-science graduate, she worked in fish farming, and took a postgraduate degree in freshwater species. She hadn't landed long in Rossaveal when word spread about her interests. Over the past couple of years, her office freezer has become home to albino monkfish, to a 12kg halibut, to wreckfish, to "crunchers" or Porcupine Bank prawns, to toadfish, deepwater Deal fish and to a seasonally named Tinsel fish caught by the Maria Magdalena IIIjust before Christmas 2010.

“My hobby is photography, and so it seemed to make sense to photograph the fish and the fishermen and women – including Aran island skipper Cliona Conneely – and make a calendar,” she says. She has sold dozens of the calendars in aid of the Galway Hospice over the past three winters. “It’s a lovely record, and it’s something positive for the industry – when often there isn’t a lot of that about .”