FISHING SKIPPERS and crew have agreed to a further suspension of threatened port protests, pending the outcome of Irish negotiations at an EU Fisheries Council meeting on June 23rd.
However, Gerard O'Flynn of the Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation, warned the Government yesterday that the problems have not been resolved.
"One should not for one moment underestimate the depth of despair, anger and frustration that fishermen are feeling at the moment," Mr O'Flynn, who is also a director of the Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF), said. "The fuel price crisis has highlighted an urgent need to address serious structural issues already identified."
A group of over 300 skippers and crew took the decision to suspend the action - which would have involved blockades this week of Dublin, Cork and Foynes, Co Limerick - after a five-hour meeting in Athlone, Co Westmeath on Saturday.
Whitefish vessels which had been tied up for almost a fortnight were returning to sea last night. However, the group intends to meet again on the issue on June 30th - a week after a key EU fisheries council meeting.
The suspension followed a pledge by Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries Brendan Smith and his junior counterpart Tony Killeen on Friday night to expedite a "new EU-funded package of measures to alleviate the immediate issues of concern to the Irish fishing industry".
The Ministers held day-long talks with the FIF and four fishermen's representatives in Athlone on Friday, but stopped short of committing State funds for a temporary tie-up, which would alleviate severe financial pressure on vessels during the current fuel price crisis.
The EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg has already signalled that such short-term measures may be permitted under EU guidelines.
Mr Killeen said that he would be impressing upon the commissioner and his council colleagues that "in any package of EU aid, a priority had to be attached to the Irish fish fleet".
Johnny Walsh, skipper of the Rachel Jayand spokesman for the group, said he sincerely hoped further protests would not be required. A temporary tie-up, he said, should be coupled with an extension of the existing decommissioning scheme, which has already suffered from a cut in promised funding and delays.
"We've had enormous public support, but I'd like to challenge one view expressed over the weekend that fishermen who voted against the Lisbon Treaty are expecting hand-outs now from Brussels," Mr Walsh said. "The fishing industry has been giving the EU hand-outs since we joined.
"Billions of fish are being caught off this coastline every year by non-Irish vessels, with minimal monitoring, and one only has to visit Castletownbere, Co Cork or Dingle, Co Kerry at a weekend to see the number of trucks leaving with transhipments for France and Spain," he said.
Mr Walsh said the two Ministers who met the industry on Friday had been told that priorities included the introduction of administrative penalties for minor offences and fair EU-wide monitoring.
"All of the issues we raised are issues which were raised by the FIF in their first meeting with the Minister on May 29th. We realise that these two Ministers are new in the job," Mr Walsh said.
Gerard O'Flynn acknowledged the approach taken by Mr Smith and Mr Killeen last Friday. "However, the structural issues which we have raised are in the Government's own Cawley report, which it endorsed in January 2007," Mr O'Flynn said.
"The two losers at the moment are the catching sector and the consumer."
