CRATES of undersized baby hake are for sale at the Spanish port of Vigo, just weeks after Spanish fishermen were granted access to the Irish Box under a controversial EU agreement.
Baby hake about half the length of a child's school ruler - substantially below the EU limit of 30 cm - is on sale in a huge fish market at the port, regarded as Spain's fishing capital with annual fish sales of £70 million and a population of 300,000.
The baby fish is sold on to wholesalers and appears as a delicacy on the menus of local restaurants.
A spokeswoman for the Department of the Marine dismissed suggestions that the fish were caught in the Irish Box. She said the Department did not accept that policing measures designed to preserve dwindling fish stocks in the area were insufficient. "We are confident that no laws have been broken in the Irish Box", she said.
The Fianna Fail MEP, Mr Pat the Cope Gallagher, said he was worried the Government would take a "laissez faire" approach towards the monitoring of Spanish boats in the Irish Box. He called on the Minister for the Marine, Mr Barrett, to disclose details of policing measures for the area and warned that increasing frustration among Irish fishermen could lead to a "real confrontation" with the Spanish.
Asked where the undersized hake on sale in Vigo came Spanish fishermen, in boats flying flags of convenience, replied: "From Ireland. From El Box." One fisherman said: "All the boats going into El Box use a net called the condom. It happens with 100 per cent of them." He will be joining a Spanish trawler to fish the Irish Box later this month under the new agreement.
"The ship owners say `keep it legal', but each skipper makes his own decisions. With the condom, nothing can escape them. We are talking about 3 mm mesh. Our owners don't allow it, but it's up to our skipper", he said.
"The trick is if you get chased by a patrol boat, you just cut the lines and it sinks to the bottom", he added.
"I admit that you can find the illegal undersized hake in the restaurants and in the markets, and this is something we're interested to stamp out," said the president of the Vigo Ship Owners' Co operative, Mr Jose Suarez Llanos.
Asked if a single full time inspector based at the port would end the practice, Mr Llanos confirmed that there is not at present any such office at the port.
He said that inspectors from Madrid carry out random checks without warning, including road checks. However, it was "impossible to inspect the whole coast".
The chairman of the Irish Fishermen's Federation, Mr Donal O'Driscoll, said stocks of hake had been seriously depleted over the years by the Spanish because of their practice of catching under sized fish. "They couldn't possibly catch those with the legally standard size mesh of 80mm.
"We've known that they've been doing this for years - the difficulty is in persuading people here that it is happening. Our biggest problem is that we have no idea what they're taking back to Spain. It will be another two years before EU law says they have to report to us what they're taking out of our waters.
"We haven't got the resources to police this, despite what the Irish Government is saying. Ships promised to the Navy in time for this new European agreement haven't arrived. And we obviously can't rely on the Spanish to do it. There is nothing whatsoever being done on that side."
EU inspectors can only visit ports with local inspectors present and have no authority to board vessels or make arrests, Mr O'Driscoll added.
Mr Jim Portus, chief executive of the South Western Fish Producers' Organisation in Britain, said the new agreement would create a massive "policing headache" for the Irish authorities.
"The Irish Box is the prime nursery for hake. The Spanish make great play that they've got all these new inspectors, but there is obviously something wrong. They don't have the willpower or the physical means", he said.
Since January 1st, 40 named Spanish vessels at a time are allowed to fish in the 70,000 square mile maritime zone surrounding the island of Ireland. The zone was established to protect fish stocks in 1986, when Spain and Portugal joined the EC - now the EU.
The spokeswoman for the Department of the Marine said its monitoring was boosted with the purchase of two aircraft last year, at a cost of £34 million each. The Department had put "very sophisticated" measures in place to police the area, including 18 onshore inspectors and new logbook procedures.