03 January 2006
Newsletter Platform Piece by Jim Allister MEP
It has been a bad month for Ulster’s fishermen. First, we had the demoralising spectacle of Jim Nicholson MEP joining with the Republic’s MEPs to demand that the South’s fishermen should be shielded from punitive penalties for breaches of the Common Fisheries Policy, to which we in Northern Ireland have been subject for years. Then we had the ‘no show’ by Lord Rooker at the Quota-setting meeting in Brussels.
Northern Ireland’s fishermen ask the Minister to do only one job a year for them – go to the December Council of Ministers meeting in Brussels and fight their corner when the next year’s total allowable catches are being set. Lord Rooker didn’t bother. He hides behind duties in the House of Lords, but the Fisheries Council dates are set in stone from year to year. The Minister knew these dates since he came into office, yet he and the Government set an agenda in the House of Lords which, he says, kept him away from Brussels on Monday and Tuesday. But what of Wednesday? Why, at least, did he not attend on the vital final day? Why does he accept a portfolio, and the salary which goes with it, if he is not prepared to do the job?
The consequence of his absence was that Northern Ireland’s fishermen were sold short. We emerged as the only region of the UK where the value of our annual allowable catch was cut. Scotland, with its Minister present, got a handsome increase in quotas, particularly prawns. English fishermen, notably in the South-west, with their Minister present, likewise did well. But Northern Ireland, with no Minister, saw its permitted days at sea slashed, a cut in its cod quota and a miserly 10% increase in the prawn quota, though prawn stocks are in surplus, and a token increase for plaice.
What makes me most angry about Lord Rooker’s shameful neglect of duty is the hint in his reaction that he was playing politics. When he said politicians knew what they had to do to get a full-time Minister, he revealed a political motivation in his calculated absence. We are dealing here with livelihoods, not point-scoring. Every quota cut reduces income and costs jobs. But, the Minister is only interested in using his default as a crude political stick to beat Unionists back into government with Sinn Fein. He should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.
Sadly, this is a Minister who shows no interest in Fisheries. I believe his sole contact with local fishermen was a visit to Kilkeel when Commissioner Borg came to Northern Ireland. However, once the photographs were over the Minister soon left, without waiting to hear the fishermen put their full case to the Commissioner.
Having let the fishing sector down so badly in Brussels, the least the Minister can now do is give financial support through a “Tie-Up Scheme” for Spring 2006. We had such modest support in 2004 and 2005, by way of slight compensation for being denied the right to fish, but to date the Department is showing resistance to pressing the EU for approval to extend it to 2006. Imperfect as this scheme is, it at least keeps some in the sector solvent during the critical closed periods, when overheads continue but income is denied. I might add that I was amazed when on 1st December Jim Nicholson, on one of his occasional visits to the Fisheries Committee in Brussels, showed his ignorance that such a scheme even existed, when he complained that no compensation was ever made available for boats that had to tie up under the CFP. The scheme is doubtless deficient, but at least in the years when it has operated it was better than nothing.
Lord Rooker is not only our Fisheries Minister, but also our Agriculture Minister and our Environment Minister: three subjects where policy is directly shaped by Europe. Yet since coming to office he has never gone on any subject to Brussels to defend and promote Northern Ireland’s interests. Over recent months the package, flowing from the Nitrates Directive, which so affects our agricultural sector, has been under negotiation with Brussels, but, again, Lord Rooker is distinguished only by his absence.
The Minister is said to be fond of his garden. Perhaps the Prime Minister should give him more time to enjoy it by relieving him of ministerial burdens he evidently does not want to bear.
Fishing
