MINISTER FOR the Marine Simon Coveney has called on other EU coastal states to follow Ireland’s example and release full details of the extent of their discarded fish catches.
Mr Coveney was commenting on publication yesterday of a “discard atlas” by the Marine Institute and Bord Iascaigh Mhara which indicates that some 38 per cent of commercial Irish whitefish catches have to be thrown overboard under EU rules.
However, Irish vessels take only 15 per cent of all fish caught in Irish waters, with 85 per cent taken by French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, British and other vessels.
Discards are mandatory under the current EU Common Fisheries Policy, due to restrictions on quotas and minimum sizes of fish which vessels can catch.
EU maritime affairs commissioner Maria Damanaki has pledged to eradicate the practice – a move which Ireland supports in principle, while pointing out that a “blanket ban” may cause greater problems than it seeks to resolve.
The atlas quotes United Nations figures which indicate that the northeast Atlantic has the second highest discard level in the world, estimated at a total of 1.3 million tonnes annually.
The majority of unwanted fish in this region is caught by EU fleets, but the atlas notes a “mixed picture”.
Last year, some 12,400 tonnes or 56 per cent by weight of haddock caught in the Celtic Sea was dumped, while there was an average 30 per cent discard rate for Irish vessels catching this species in the Irish Sea.
By contrast, Ireland dumped less than 1 per cent of cod caught off the northwest Irish and Scottish coasts last year.