£28m plan to improve fishing safety is suspended

IRELAND has suspended an EU backed £28 million programme to improve safety on fishing vessels, due to the lack of agreement within the EU over the size of the Union fleet.

However, the suspension of funds is not being applied by other EU member states, The Irish Times has learned.

The Department of the Marine has confirmed that the 1994/99 fleet renewal and modernisation programme has been frozen until the EU agrees on fleet size.

A report commissioned by the Minister for the Marine, Mr Barrett, last year found that the bulk of the fleet was decrepit, under equipped and poorly maintained, and that only 6 per cent of it was under 10 years old.

It found that more than 60 per cent of vessels have "serious deficiencies". From October 1994 to February 1996, 25 Irish fishermen lost their lives at sea.

The Department of the Marine said this week that there was "no legal basis" for modernisation or renewal grants, due to the impasse at EU level since last December.

The five year fleet modernisation scheme is administered by Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), with a 5 per cent contribution from the Exchequer and 25 per cent from the EU. Though the bulk of the cost is borne by fishermen themselves, the grant in aid enables them to negotiate loans with financial institutions.

Other EU member states have not taken such a rigid approach in response to the EU impasse, and are continuing to pay exchequer funds. As it is, Ireland is one of the few states to pay the minimum State contribution, at 5 per cent.

The suspension has come as the Minister is expected to implement some of the recommendations of his fishing vessel safety review group report, published last June. That report had recommended increasing grant aid for modernisation from 30 to 50 per cent - still 10 per cent below the recommended EU maximum. It had also recommended State grants for new vessels.

The review group was established after three serious fishing accidents with the loss of 10 lives over the winter of 1995/96.