Local role in marine defence advised

A Government review group has recommended that stakeholders on the Atlantic seaboard should be permitted to become "custodians" of their resource, backed up by a marine version of the farmers' Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (REPS).

The report, published in a week when 20 fishermen of Irish, Spanish, Portuguese, San Tome and Ghanaian nationality died off the west coast, has been presented by the former IDA head, Mr Padraic White, to the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey. It says the marine environment can only benefit if there is devolution of management and responsibility.

The document acknowledges that there is a global consensus about overall decline in fish stocks, and says contributory factors such as discards of young fish must be tackled through technical conservation measures, already taken on board by the fishing industry. The review group has recommended the introduction of an EU-based "rapid reaction" observer corps to back this up.

The review group believes that legislation should be expanded to enforce the recording of discards in logbooks of fishing vessels. However, it emphasises that protection of the marine environment is all-embracing, in that land-based activities pose one of the biggest threats. Some 80 per cent of marine litter can be traced to the shore.

A marine version of REPS, which would be known as the Marine Environment Protection Scheme (MEPS), would encourage fishermen's co-operatives and fish farmers to develop environmentally sound techniques aimed at enhancing stock at local, national and transnational level, the report says. The lobster stock enhancement scheme, which began in Wexford in 1994, is an example of this. The report is the latest in a series of documents published by the Government's National Strategy Review Group on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Chaired by Mr White, the group was established by the former marine minister, Dr Michael Woods, in December 1998, and involves policy-makers and representatives of the seafood industry.

The group says that commitments made by the EU in various international assemblies must be applied effectively and monitored. The increased transfer of irradiated nuclear material by ship in the Irish Sea, with the advent of the THORP/Sellafield reprocessing facility, is of particular concern, it says. It believes a phase-out programme should be instigated for the discharge of all land-based pollutants.

The new report also calls for more research into the impact of aggregate extraction on sea-bed habitats and coastal erosion, and recommends the development of environmentally sound techniques for oil and gas extraction. It says dumping at sea should be phased out, except for specified inert or biodegradable substances dumped in "controlled and defined circumstances" where there is no alternative.

Prayers were said at the weekend in several west coast churches and in the former fishing community church on the Claddagh in Galway for the relatives of the 20 fishermen of European and west African nationality who died at sea over the past eight days.

Relatives of men from Marin and Pontevedra in Galicia who were drowned after the British-registered Spanish vessel, Arosa, hit the Skerd rocks 13 miles south-east of Slyne Head, travelled to identify the bodies in University College Hospital, Galway. As they arrived, a sixth body was recovered from the shoreline at Carna, that of Alfredo Estevez Garcia (32), from Galicia, who had wanted to leave the vessel two weeks ago as his wife was due to give birth.

There was only one survivor of the accident, Mr Ricardo Arias Garcia (24), who was rescued by the Shannon-based Sikorsky helicopter. Having survived this ordeal, he spent the rest of last week identifying the bodies of six of his colleagues, being interviewed by the authorities and giving evidence at the inquest.

The official investigation will be pursued by Britain, as flag state for the vessel, which had been gill-netting for monkfish.

Questions may be asked about the seaworthiness of the 38-metre steel-hulled ship, which was reportedly running for shelter from a gale when it struck the Skerd rocks. Two of the 13 crew were from San Tome in west Africa, and one was from Ghana.