Thunder in the air

I seem to remember, around this very time last year, writing an article called ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ in which I highlighted that from July to September every year in the Irish fishing industry everything goes quiet.

These past few months have been a repeat of that scenario with Government TDs and ministers on holidays…. civil service departments are quiet, the BIM pro government ‘spin’ machine grinds to a halt and stops publishing the fantasy reports about how wonderful the Irish fishing industry is doing (neglecting to mention that they are papering over the cracks by classing imported seafood with an Irish label now put on it as being ‘Irish seafood’ to boost the figures) instead of telling the public the truth and that this is an industry, more than any other in modern Irish economic history, that is on the verge of collapse, largely due to historic mismanagement, corruption at administrative levels, and lack of national political support against an EU Commission determined to suck this country dry of its fisheries resources.

Also noticeable is the lack of sight of SFPA officers around the ports…. The vastly inflated numbers of fisheries monitors that this body claims to require are based on the need for monitoring seafood regulations, inspecting landings of whitefish vessels and dealing with the pelagic and polyvalent sector…. despite the glaring fact that the volume of Irish demersal landings has reduced by 40% in the past five years due to loss of quota coupled with a fleet decommissioning scheme and also the glaring fact that the pelagic catching and processing season has, in recent years, become reduced to a mere seven to eight week period out of the entire year…. And so, what are the SFPA staff which we’re told are so badly needed for that season, doing the rest of the year to justify their cost to the State?

But, unmentioned and almost forgotten about through these months every year is the inshore, demersal (and some polyvalent) fishing fleet itself… and the fishermen who, unlike all of the State industry management bodies who make a nice steady wage off the back of this indsutry, can never afford a holiday…. They have been fishing on, day after day, week after week, month after month, through fair and storm weather - still absent from their families every night as they try to earn enough to pay the boat, put food on the table and to bank what they need to send their kids through college.

Another year of uncertainty ahead?

As an inhabitant of Killybegs, Ireland’s main pelagic port, I can sense the air of tension in the industry is palpable at this time (and probably in many other ports too) as winter, and another round of quota cuts are announced - -  an odd nice day’s summer holiday atmosphere is doing nothing to mask the dread that the rumours of a proposed ICES 40% reduction (and maybe worse!) in the mackerel quota is coming from January 1st (while, by the way, Norway, Iceland and Faroese continue to abuse and ignore critical scientific advice on this stock).

The impact of yet another big quota cut in mackerel doesn’t bear thinking about with, in the background, no real increase in blue whiting quota for Ireland and the third year of rumours of an Icelandic blue whiting deal in Irish waters that just won’t seem to go away….

And while the Irish pelagic sector were totally against such a deal with Iceland at one point, it may be a case of Irish pelagic fishermen being forced to ‘sell out’ if the deal results in a few thousand tonnes of desperately needed mackerel quota coming the other way in exchange.

Questions need to be answered

But if, as it seems entirely possible, this industry continues to go down, if not eventually completely out, then it cannot be allowed go down without a fight.

There are too many questions that remain unanswered and these must be brought into the light … …

… too many people who have had a hand in the destruction of this industry have been allowed just walk off into the sunset with a fat pension while many fishermen have been left bankrupt .. or worse still,,, too many people who have quietly relocated to a new position in the industry background and are still screwing fishermen for a few more euros.

There can be no doubt that, more than any other in Ireland, the upper levels of this industry have been forever plagued by bullshitters and collar & tie con men.

The people who have already been forced out and lost their livelihoods, as well as the many who will no doubt be forced to follow them to the dole queue over the next year or two at least deserve a very public enquiry into several issues such as :

a) how our most recent previous fisheries minister, both during and post Brexit, allowed himself to be advised by someone who the minister was aware had a financial interest in a French fishing fleet operation and their quotas… Indeed, this minister, having possession of that information, continued to allow said man to work for several years on the Irish quota management body when surely if there was ever a case of an industrial, legal and political conflict of interest then this was it… ;

b) how allegations persist that a senior DAFM civil servant (who was later forced into early retirement by the Taoiseach of the day) appointed another DAFM civil servant to a senior post in the SFPA without any (constitutionally legally required) State interviews of any group of any other candidates taking place  - - this is a question that was put to SFPA senior officials by both Michael Collins Ind TD and Pearse Doherty SF TD two years ago at the Joint Oireachtas Committee hearing (when I personally attended as a guest witness) and when the SFPA were asked who sat on the panel to interview candidates for this post, they refused to answer on the grounds that it was ‘internal policy’ and somehow they believed it to be protected information… This question still remains unanswered ;

c) how an Irish mussel industry, once hailed by BIM as being worth 40 million per year, was suddenly apparently sold out and abandoned by both BIM and DAFM and left those who had been encouraged to invest heavily in it now completely at a loss with Irish State bodies no longer willing to even discuss the matter any further in case it exposed their complete management failure;

And d) how a minister, the same one referred to above, who was handed a 600 million euro BAR package intended by the EU to compensate Irish fishermen as a result of quota loss from Brexit, managed to spend two thirds of it on projects and schemes (many of which should have come out of Ireland’s own Structural Fund budget) without an single actual cent being handed over to any fisherman, as was done in other EU Member States… before he then returned some 200 million back to the EU as being “not needed”….

In this case the minister claimed he was following the advice and recommendations of his SeaFood Task Force when in fact the fishing industry representatives on that Force were largely ignored at every turn by the minister…. So much so that the minutes of one particular meeting, recorded by the DAFM, deleted any mention of an objection by the fishing industry representatives to the proposal of a fleet decommissioning scheme … with the minister later appearing on RTÉ News and brazenly saying it was the industry who had “asked for” this scheme.

Given that it was the widely-held opinion of many that here was a minister barely able to tie his own shoelaces and certainly not with the brains to make any major decisions for an entire industry worth hundreds of millions in GDP to the Irish State every year, then who, if clearly not the industry representatives, was the minister taking his advice from throughout his term in office… a term with such a dreadful performance record that it earned him the reputation from the industry as being the ‘worst fishing minister in the history of the State’?

While many believe this hidden advisor to be another unpopular ex Fianna Fáil previous minister, this, more than any other, is a question that must be answered.

Footnote

I am well aware that there may be some controversy by raising these questions and no doubt, I will once again receive subtle threats, more attempted blackening of my name and more untrue rumours spread about me, but I believe the people of this industry, who have lost so much, are constitutionally entitled to demand a full Government enquiry into the goings on of the past twenty years and how the Irish fleet and processing industry has now been left on its knees while every other nation in the EU, and coastal states, continue to grow, develop, adapt to life with less quotas but still be able to build new boats so as to keep their catching sector modern and up to date.

I am also well aware that every time I, or others like me, write something that even hints at the nonsense that is going on at the administrative levels of this industry that I am described by BIM, the SFPA and DAFM as being a ‘negative influence’… so apparently anyone who tries to turn over a rock as shine a light on the corruption is ‘negative’ and that, if you try to speak the truth and refuse to buy into the propaganda, then you are deemed ‘negative’.

In response to those bodies who attempt to dismiss anyone who tries to highlight the distasteful reality we have in our industry today then in response I openly hereby describe them, and the media outlets they sponsor for their fictional reports, as a ‘cancerous influence’ rather than my perceived negative one.

This a group of bodies who continue to oversee, if not actively pursue, the blatant destruction of a sector vital to Irish rural coastal communities without any Government accountability for their dreadful record in taking State payments every year while the history continues to show their sinful record of the downward spiral of every element of this sector and their dreadful failure to help this industry survive for the future.

The facts speak for themselves…. Year after year our Government allocates millions of State, taxpayers’ money to the likes of DAFM and BIM… and every year we see more battles lost in the EU… more reductions in quotas, more boats removed from the fleet.. and more and more young people walking away from a career in an industry with no future….. and, to try and cover up their failures, and to justify their own jobs, these bodies expend valuable time and resources into publishing more and more reports to con their paymasters into believing what a great job they’re doing and what a wonderful industry this is under their management ….. its a tragic but rotten situation.

Photo credit: Irish Legal News