Ferris supports protesting fishermen

Fishermen from Kilmore Quay, Wexford, give away fish on Dublin’s O’Connell Bridge in protest at the Government’s failure to support their industry

THE Sinn Féin spokesperson on Fisheries, Martin Ferris TD, has pledged his support for the actions by fishermen highlighting the current crisis facing the industry.
Protests by the fishermen on 5 June, including one at Leinster House which the Kerry North TD attended, focused on the impact of steeply rising fuel prices but also the overall pressures from reduced quotas, fishing days and other restrictions.
“I have already raised the issue of the impact of fuel increases and called upon the Government to take immediate action to alleviate the severe impact that this is having on fishermen.
“Irish fishing is in danger of entering a terminal decline which is compounded by the fuel crisis but which is a fruit of decades of mismanagement and neglect fundamentally based on successive governments’ surrender of control over a potentially massively valuable natural resource to the disastrous Common Fisheries Policy.
“Much is being made at the moment of the benefits of EU membership in the context of attempting to browbeat people into supporting Lisbon. Let the plight of the Irish fishing industry and the loss of the equivalent in all EU funding in unprocessed fish taken out of Irish waters stand as a reminder that it has not been a one-way street as some of the Europhiles would have us believe.”