FISHERS from West Cork who met Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue last week said they felt he hadn’t heard their pleas for immediate action.
After the meeting between Minister McConalogue and representatives of the seafood sector, including the Castletownbere-based ISWFPO, the organisation’s chief executive Patrick Murphy said more needed to be done, and urgently.
‘The minister made clear to us in industry that he listened to each representative of the sector, all present and accounted for – but he did not hear the unified request made to him and his department,’ he said.
Mr Murphy said he had hoped the minister would say he was ‘acting immediately to help seafood sector organisations to continue to operate despite the impacts of energy costs and he also discussed EU fisheries negotiations on quota setting for 2023.’
Mr Murphy said the sector had been calling for assistance since long before the war in Ukraine.
‘This is really simple. Our industry, like all others, is suffering from the fallout of the Russian conflict with its neighbours, the Ukraine. The European Union show of solidarity with Ukraine has led to a removal of Russian oil and gas supply to European markets and fuel prices as a result have more than doubled.’
In recognition of the hardship and jeopardy to Europe’s fishing industry the European Commission envoked article 26.2 of the European Maritime Fisheries Fund. But, he added, the minister acknowledged there are unallocated funds left over in the 2014-2020 budget but is ‘still trying to decide’ where this money is best spent for the benefit of the fishing industry.
‘And this, despite all-industry consultation that the greatest threat currently is our inability to cover the additional costs of rising fuel prices,’ said Mr Murphy. ‘In short, not supporting the industry now will damage the current participants to a degree that will be damaging in the short-term and fatal in the not-so-long-term.’
