Skip to main content
Normal View

Fish Landings

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 April 2014

Thursday, 3 April 2014

Questions (203)

Luke 'Ming' Flanagan

Question:

203. Deputy Luke 'Ming' Flanagan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will confirm the figures given by a person (details supplied) to the Committee of Public Accounts stating that the value of fish stocks taken from Irish waters between 1975 and 2010 by all member states of the EU was €201 billion, only €17 billion worth of which was caught and processed by Irish fishermen and processors; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15753/14]

View answer

Written answers

The figures the Deputy refers to were in a paper submitted to the Public Accounts Committee in September 2012 by Dr. Karen Devine of DCU. The title of the paper was 'Draft Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union' and was not related to fisheries per se. The figures quoted in the paper relating to 'the value of fish stocks taken from Irish Waters' were not supplied either by this Department or the Marine Institute. I am not aware that the information was supplied by the Department of Finance.

The waters around Ireland contain some of the most productive and biologically sensitive fishing grounds in the EU. In 2010, an estimated 1.3 million tonnes of fish were taken by the fishing fleets of EU member states from the waters around Ireland (ICES Sub-areas VI & VII which extend from north of Scotland to Brittany and cover part of the Exclusive Fisheries zone on the UK and France also). Ireland landed 259,500 tonnes of these fish or 23% of the international landings. The main fish species caught were mackerel, horse mackerel, boarfish, blue whiting, herring, cod, whiting, haddock, saithe, hake, megrim, anglerfish, plaice, sole and Nephrops (prawns).

The Irish authorities are not responsible for compiling data on landings or the value of landings of fish by non Irish fishing vessels, except those landing into Irish fishing ports. Landing data is the responsibility of the flag Member State. Landing data into Irish ports are available on the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority web site. Landing figures for all Member States are publically available on the Eurostat website at the following link: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/fisheries/data/database.

Top
Share