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THE EUROPEAN UNION and Norway have signed an international fisheries agreement in Clonakilty, west Cork today. The agreement, which was signed at 6am this morning, was welcomed by Minister Simon Coveney who said it would be “positive for our fishermen”.
Delegates from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France, United Kingdom, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and the European Commission participated in the negotiations at the National Seafood Centre, Clonakilty.
Coveney said the agreement would now allow fishermen and fish factories “to get on with their business in the normal way”.
The negotiations agreed the total allowable catch (TAC) for important stocks that are managed by both the EU and Norway as well as the sharing of these stocks between them. The agreement also involved the transfer of quotas between the EU and Norway as part of a balanced deal in the interests of EU and Norwegian fishermen.
The negotiations covered many stocks in both the North Sea, the western waters around Ireland and Scotland and stocks in Norwegian waters.
Issues of particular interest to Ireland included the setting a total allowable catch for the €1 billion Mackerel fishery and the sharing of that between EU, Norway and the other participants in the Mackerel fishery. The agreement reached this morning allocated 90.38 per cent of the TAC for Mackerel to the European Union and Norway, which is a continuation of the normal sharing arrangement which EU and Norway have applied in recent years.
This arrangement does not reward Iceland or the Faroe Islands with any larger share of the Mackerel stock, which the department said they both have been demanding in association with their overfishing of this stock in recent years.
Commenting on the negotiations today, Coveney said:
EU and Norway have acted responsibly by cutting their own catches by 15 per cent in response to scientific advice on the impact of Icelandic and Faroes overfishing on the Mackerel stock. Iceland and Faroes need to come back to the table with much more realistic expectations of the share of the stock they can expect, if we are to get the mackerel fishery back into a sustainable position in the interest of all parties.
The minister said he welcomed the agreed increase of 64 per cent in the Blue Whale Total Allowable Catch for 2013 as well as the fact that the percentage of Blue Whiting TAC which is transferred by EU to Norway has been negotiated down to 7 per cent.
The agreement signed in Clonakilty paves the way for the final negotiations on access for EU vessels to Norwegian waters and Norwegian vessels to EU waters to be concluded in a final meeting in London next Tuesday.
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Angela Kerins, the reason I no longer donate money to charity.
@David Oppenshore: Well said sir. Money only going to pay CEO salary and outrageous expenses.
No charity, sporting or other such organisation should be given public money unless they first waive any ‘rights’ to protect themselves from public scrutiny of their finances. They can carry on freely without that money if they chose. Take it or leave it.
@Sega Yolo: totally agree
@Sega Yolo: perfectly said.
Imagine that. Kerins took home a ludicrous salary whilst miserably mismanaging the running of a charity and somehow is managing to outdo herself and create a lasting damage on the public’s ability to hold future disasters to account…
Just when you think you know the limits of someone’s toxicity to society, she goes and out does herself once more without even being in the room.
The Irish charity industry is destroyed by the greed of the few!
Vote with your feet,
Don’t give a penny to them!
@Niall Power: will never give a penny to any charity that pays their CEO and subordinates excessive salaries.
The pac committee full of incompetent politicians is not fit for purpose. The questioning of the fai officials the other day was very weak, pure amateurish, they really didn’t know their brief, what questions to ask.
@Adrian: they could have asked what day it was and still not received a straight answer.
@Dave O’Keeffe: they’re not legal experts, they were afraid to ask the questions the other day because of the potential legal repercussions, hence the farce that it was. They need legal experts on those committees, they should be able to come to some arrangement without turning them into tribunals. A bunch of incompetent politicians protecting their own interests, paying themselves 15k fees while asking stupid questions like “how many bank accounts do you have?”, turns the whole process into a joke and achieves nothing.
@Adrian: the questions were 100%. The problem was the FAI officials refused to answer. Nothing the pac can do about that.
@Adrian: They were told what they could ask “legally”. The law seems to protect the wealthy wrongdoers.
People in high positions have to be held accountable in public. However I struggle with the idea of giving the likes of Ruth Coppinger and others the power to carry out public investigations and give them compellabilty. If that became the case I could see people’s good name and reputation coming second to political point scoring.
Totally irrelevant nothing to do with FAI. The FAI is not a charity – it is a business and why they kept quoting the Kerins case is s mystery to me.
Looking at some of the motley members of various committees one would have to be dubious. Some are up to the task but many others fail miserably. Some are rude, arrogant, ill-informed and totally oblivious to their briefs. If they are that determined to cross the line then they should be open to full retribution in the courts. The verdict in the Angela Kearns case was spot on!!
@Chris Gaffney: I don’t know about that, why should good TDs and Senators who ask the difficult questions be muzzled by a ruling like that? I do get that there are some clowns on these committees, and they say things for headlines and there 30 seconds on sixone so the voters back home can see them sticking up to the dubs, but the real nature of these committees should be open, honest and sometimes difficult conversations with people like Delaney.
Lawmakers unhappy that the have to work within the law, my heart goes out to them.
Even if there was no Kerins ruling the public voted to reduce the powers of the committee so they are limited from the offset .
Kerins is looking for and going to get a multi million damages award for her suffering at PAC ..this is the biggest joke of all.
Delaney puffed and bluffed and ran circles round the PAC the Kearins judgment rules thst the PAC cannor go outside its remit or in other words tits terms of reference. Once the PAC keep within its remit lile asking questions on the €1000 loan then it would not fall foul on the Supreme Courts judgement.
Who can afford to bring a case to the High Court or Supreme Court ?
The Courts and Judges are only there to interpret the Law and ensure it is upheld. They do no make law.
If the PAC feel that the ‘Laws’ of our land are not sufficient, then it is up to them as legislators to change the ‘Laws’, so that their tongues are not tied when questioning individuals and agencies about their conduct. They have no one to blame but themselves for the situation the PAC finds themselves in.
1/ The Kerins issue is not case law yet, is awaiting determination on appeal, & is not relevant. Mr. D used the pending determination to ward off awkward questions, left them hanging out there, & thereby damaged his public standing.
2/ The committee did not need to subject anyone, including Mr. Delaney, to interrogation on their income or expenses, & just stay on track about the application of public funds & FAI corporate management. The investigative journalists have put these questions out, the public are expecting the FAI to provide the answers.
3/ Sport Ireland can with hold funding, insist on a forensic audit of the FAI accounts for the years when public funding was drawn down, & require appropriate governance structures, in accordance with the separate reviews already commissioned.
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