Drop Down Menu
  Search...
 

 

Greencastle Harbour comes to standstill  17.06.08

GREENCASTLE Harbour came to a standstill at the weekend as every skipper tied up his boat and joined fishermen around the country at crisis talks in Athlone.
A local delegation of around 20 trawlermen and their supporters travelled from Inishowen to the Midlands on Friday for the marathon talks. The exodus resulted in the biggest tie-up seen at the harbour for many years. The crunch meeting resulted in fishermen agreeing, for now at least, to call off their blockades.
Foyle Fishermen's Co-Op manager John O'Kane said the local skippers, like their national counterparts, would now give the Government a chance to deliver on its undertaking to get aid for them from the EU.
"Morale is at an all-time low in the fishing industry and if things continue as they are, the future looks bleak," said Mr. O'Kane.
All the fishing boats are tied up in Greencastle Harbour.
He said the soaring cost of fuel was only part of the problem and that the Sea Fisheries Bill, which would criminalise fishermen for relatively minor offences and errors, was one of the biggest issues on the table.
"This bill hassles and harasses fishermen. If a fisherman was over quota by say just €500 they could be fined around €100,000 and get a criminal record. It's just crazy."
Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith will this week ask the Commissioner Jo Borg to bring forward a new EU-funded package of measures to alleviate the hardship in the Irish fishing sector.
John O'Kane said that the hardship fund would mean that fishermen would have to tie-up for around two months in the near future. But he stressed that the tie-up would be alternated among skippers so that there would still be a supply of fish coming into Greencastle as the hardship fund was rolled out. In the meantime, the Greencastle fleet, like their national colleagues, will continue to press the Government to revoke the Sea Fisheries Bill.
Return to > News