Irish Ministers Noel Dempsey and John Browne welcomed the successful conclusion to a Management Committee meeting in Brussels on 23 January, which agreed to a proposal from the European Commission for partial paybacks by Ireland over a six year period for Mackerel illegally landed by large Irish trawlers into Scotland in the years 2001-2004.
Minister Dempsey commented that: "Following prolonged intense negotiations with the EU Commission and parallel discussions with the United Kingdom authorities, we have finally secured a deal for Ireland which achieves our objectives.
These objectives were to:
1: Minimise the impact of the quota deductions on the majority of fishermen who had little or nothing to do with the illegal fishing.
2: Set the reductions at reasonable levels (A reduction of almost 9,000 tonnes was secured on the amount outstanding).
3: Spread the reductions over six years.
"This will result in a manageable 6.7% reduction in the national mackerel quota this year," he continued. Minister Dempsey added that "The future of the whole pelagic industry, which is particularly important to Donegal, had been put in serious jeopardy by the actions of those trawler owners implicated in the reported large scale illegal landings into Scotland. The Commission initially adopted a strong position requiring a full and early payback of the illegally landed fish. We pointed out that if this was implemented it would have devastated the Irish pelagic industry, innocent and guilty alike. Minister John Browne and I have been working hard and constructively with the Commission since those initial discussions and have sought to minimise the impact of any deal on vessels not implicated in the Scottish landings and those vital Irish pelagic fish factories who could have been the innocent victims of this."
Both Ministers are now moving to implement the Commission Decision and are planning to have the 2007 mackerel fishery open later this week. However some of those reported as implicated in large scale illegal landings into Scotland, have put the Minister under formal legal notice that they may challenge the deduction of quota from their vessels. The Ministers are now following the legally advised procedures to implement the paybacks at vessel level and to open the fishery as soon as possible.
