Commission takes State to task over £50m trawler

The European Commission has initiated infringement proceedings against Ireland over the £50 million supertrawler, the Atlantic Dawn, and failure to meet fishing fleet size targets.

The Commission has sent the Government formal notices on two counts, and it has two months to reply. The move comes as a blow to the owner, Mr Kevin McHugh of Killybegs, Co Donegal, and to the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources, which had recently extended the ship's temporary licence.

The Green MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, has called on the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, to revoke the temporary licence granted to the supertrawler. However, a Department spokesman told The Irish Times it was now involved in negotiations in Brussels to "address both issues".

The Department has been involved in discussions with the Commission on a continuing basis since the 144-metre vessel - the largest of its type in Europe - was delivered from a Norwegian shipyard just over a year ago. The vessel was designed to take advantage of EU agreements with "third countries", but Mr McHugh was forced to broker a private agreement with the west African state of Mauretania when the EU blocked his bid to participate on the international register.

The vessel is not on the Irish or EU fishing fleet registers, but has been registered under the 1995 Mercantile Marine Act, pending resolution of the issues with the European Commission. Mr Fahey awarded the vessel a temporary licence which was extended "indefinitely" just over a month ago.

The Commission says in a statement that Ireland had not sent it the required information in relation to the Atlantic Dawn. "Consequently, this vessel is not registered in the EU register of fishing vessels," it says.

The infringement proceedings also take Ireland to task over failing "to meet some of the intermediate targets" set out for the Irish fleet within the framework of the EU's fleet capacity reduction programme for 1997-2001. This relates to the size of the pelagic (mackerel and herring) fleet. Mr Sean O'Donoghue, of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation (KFO), has maintained that the Commission "changed the goalposts" in relation to the pelagic fleet size after Ireland had met its targets in 1996.

Ms McKenna has welcomed the Commission's warnings. "Granting a licence to the Atlantic Dawn was not only irresponsible and arrogant in the light of the existing failure by Ireland to meet its legally binding fishing fleet reduction requirements, but it could also be illegal," she said.