Tom MacSweeney maritime column: Future for fishing communities grows bleaker

John Lynch is a lifelong fisherman. Four generations of his family made their living from the sea, based out of Castletownbere, where his father was born.

Now, his son Conor is at the start of his working life.

Regularly he asks his father: ‘Is there a future in this?’

“I am finding it harder and harder to answer, because of the difficult and precarious situation the Irish fishing Industry finds itself in,” said John.

Conor is the skipper of the Lynch family fishing vessel, ‘Eblana,’ a 37-year-old fishing trawler.

“He is not standing on the pier wondering whether to go fishing, he is out there doing it,” says his father.

“But what he has not decided is whether to put his own money into a boat of his own, and he will only do that if somebody can show him a return at the end of it. I cannot show him one. That is the plain truth of it.”

The fishing industry has a problem in recruiting younger fishermen. Coastal families have a problem in maintaining their fishing traditions.

John Lynch has two brothers who are also fishermen, an uncle of his was lost at sea in 1968. He fished for 37 years himself, until five years ago taking up the job of chief executive of the Irish South and East Fishermen’s Producer Organisation.

Addressed EU fisheries ministers

A man with much experience of the sea and of fishing, he addressed the EU fisheries ministers in Cork City Hall last Wednesday.

He asked: ‘My question to you is the same one Conor asks me — Is this the future? Is there a future?’

The ministers, including our own — Martin Heydon and Timmy Dooley — listened, but did not come up with any answers.

They got much publicity for their visit to Cork, their first meeting under Irish Presidency of the Council of Europe.

They were given a formal welcome by the Lord Mayor of Cork to City Hall. They were received at UCC. They had a visit to Charles Fort in Kinsale.

Plenty of media coverage, photographs, TV, but little about what John Lynch said to them, and nothing positive to improve the situation of Irish fishermen.

John Lynch’s family moved from the South West to the East Coast to fish out of Howth in County Dublin.

Highlighted reason for move

He highlighted the reason for that move to the European Parliamentarians.

“Fishing families have always adapted, have changed ports, changed boats, changed gear, changed the species fished. Young people have options now. They do not have to do what their fathers did.

“That is a good thing, but does present challenges for the fishing industry. Seafood does not represent a large percentage of GDP, but it is nonetheless an important part of a coastal economy employing more than 16,000 people in Ireland.

“These jobs are as important to small coastal towns as a multi -national company is to a large city.”

John Lynch highlighted the betrayal of Irish trust when the Hague Preferences were dropped by the fisheries ministers at this year’s Council quota allocations.

“Ireland entered that agreement in good faith. Our industry believed that agreement meant what it said and placed their trust in a process.

“However, for 2026 the Hague Preferences were not applied. This had a devastating impact on our industry, translated into losses of 40-50% for our fishermen. This hurt and hurt badly.

“Ministers, you ask why Irish fishermen have lost faith in the Common Fisheries Policy. That is why. Not because of any single decision, but because we have learned that nothing in it is dependable.”

His was a defining examination of the state of the Irish fishing industry.

Perilous situation

Much of its present parlous situation has been caused by EU regulations, by member states, which catch the vast amount of fish in Irish waters, restricting by their council majority vote, Irish fishermen to the least.

Those states enrich their own industries at Ireland’s expense. Once, Irish waters had the richest fisheries stocks in Europe.

That was until pressure on them by higher catches from member states damaged and, in some, destroyed stocks.

Mr Lynch challenged the ministers: “What sort of fishing industry does Europe want in 10 years’ time? What size? What scale? Based in which communities, landing into which ports? What is the plan?”

Answers are needed to those questions.

‘Community’ has been defined as “a group of people living in the same place, sharing common interests, with a feeling of fellowship and mutual interest.”

This is lacking in the way the EU/European ‘Community’ has treated Ireland’s fishing rights.

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