Fishing industry representatives are seeking an urgent meeting with Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney over the sudden closure of the Irish Sea prawn fishery until next year.
Up to 50 fishing vessels will be affected by the closure from midnight last night, at a time when there is “plenty of quota”, according to Irish Fish Producers’ Organisation (IFPO) chief executive Lorcan Ó Cinnéide.
The prawn fishery is worth €25 million annually at first point of landing, and is a staple Irish Sea catch for fleets extending from the north coast to Clogherhead, Co Louth, Skerries and Howth, Co Dublin.
Vessels have been told that a guillotine has been applied, even though they have quota, due to the expiry of “days at sea” or kilowatt days until next Spring.
“Days at sea” is an EU effort management system whereby fishing capacity is measured in engine power in kilowatts, multiplied with number of fishing days at sea.
Management of the prawn fishery is also linked to the Irish Sea cod recovery programme, as part of the prawn ground overlaps on key cod spawning areas.
The complex suite of measures is managed by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (DAFF) in consultation with the Sea Fisheries Protection Agency and the Naval Service.
Three Skerries vessels which voluntarily accepted a “Swedish grid” system – designed to reduce the bycatch of whitefish in the prawn trawl - will not be affected by the closure.
Mr Ó Cinnéide said that fishermen are mystified by and upset about the closure, given that they had been told less than four weeks ago that 25 per cent of the remaining allocation was still good to fish. “It exposes the whole craziness of EU management policy if something like this can happen without any notice,” he said.
A department spokeswoman said today that it was “examining the possibility of introducing a scheme which would allow for a limited prawn fishery in the Irish Sea”.
In a separate development, Donegal island fishermen and the Killybegs-based Fishing for Jobs campaign were among a group of 160 fishing and civil society organisations who presented a declaration on ensuring sustainability of inshore fisheries to EU Maritime Affairs Commissioner Maria Damanaki in Brussels late last week.
The declaration, drawn up by the Ocean 2012 environmental lobby group and also presented to the European Parliament, warns against the European Commission’s proposal to introduce individual transferable quotas or transferable fishing concessions from 2013.
This would “favour the most economically powerful enterprises rather than the most sustainable fishery activities”, the declaration says.
European Commission projections show employment in the fishing sector is set to decline by 60 per cent over the next 10 years, with the heaviest losses falling on the artisanal sector employing around 65 per cent of the fisheries workforce, the declaration says.