MEP holds crisis talks with fishermen
27 June 2008
During a visit to Kilkeel to discuss the fuel-driven crisis in the fishing industry, TUV MEP, Jim Allister, heard not just of the hardship being endured but shared his insight of how things could be moved forward positively.
The key, he said, lay in getting DARD to give the assistance which a pending relaxation in EU rules would soon permit. Mr Allister explained that a package of measures, which he hoped would be approved by the Council of Ministers on 7 July, would permit 60% government aid for new, more fuel-efficient engines and new gear, emergency aid for 3 month cessations of activity, help with national insurance contributions and Fleet Adjustment Schemes to allow restructuring within the industry.
The key to unlocking this aid, said Mr Allister, was in persuading the Executive to co-operate and avail of what Brussels was permitting. On past performance the omens were not good, conceded the MEP, in that to date all the Stormont Executive has offered is a miserly £276 to help with harbour dues. “Maintain this stance”, said Mr Allister “and this Executive will preside over the demise of this industry. Lord Rooker, or any of the Direct Rule Ministers, could not have been more unhelpful than the Executive has been to date.”
Contrasting the prosperity he had seen in the Norwegian fishing industry during a recent fact-finding visit, with the decline which characterised fishing in the EU, Mr Allister said the conclusion that the Common Fisheries Policy had been a disaster for the UK industry was inescapable. National management in Norway, rather than the supranational control freakery of the EU had produced a thriving, vibrant industry, based on cod and where the main take was focussed on the spawning season, in contrast to our closed periods and pitiful quotas.
Mr Allister pledged to continue the fight in Brussels and at home to ease the pain being felt throughout the industry and he praised the tenacity and resourcefulness of local fishermen in clinging on through immense adversity.
