20% cut in Mackerel Quota for 2019 to prove costly for Donegal and north west fishermen

Negotiations on the 2019 Mackerel Quota are going to prove costly for north west fishermen and will result in the loss of millions of euro in revenue, a local TD has claimed.

Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher, recognised by many as something of an expert in the fisheries area, in part because of his time spent as an MEP, maintains that a final signing agreement in Bergen next week will result in a 20% reduction on this year's figure - the cost could be as much as €20m to the Irish marine sector. If the figure is confirmed next week when the signing takes place it will, he says be another blow to the  Irish mackerel sector.
"Earlier we were dumb founded by the advice being provided by International Council for Exploration of the Sea (ICES) which were advocating cuts of  60% or more to the sector,"  stated Deputy Gallagher.
He said in 2017, fisheries negotiations for the annual mackerel fishery in the North East Atlantic allocated 86,429 tonnes to Ireland. However, for 2018, that quota was cut to 69,143 tonnes – that was equal to a 20% cut in the total quota for 2018. "Now, for 2019 we are experiencing a further cut to the Irish TAC – since 2017 our TAC has been cut by 30,935 tonnes.
"Over the past number of years we have been cut in our Mackerel quota by over €45 million in value of our catch from the headline figure of 86,429 tonnes in 2017."

He said the loss of this high valuable produce will impact severely on business plans that companies had in place, it equally
is costing onshore jobs in our coastal communities, areas which are great need of employment opportunities. 

Deputy Gallagher said he has lost confidence in recent years in the mackerel  advice provided by ICES: "I believe their advice is not based on the accurate assessment of the stocks and too many errors have occurred in the last number of years. I note that the ICES advice is totally contrary to the entire pelagic fishing industry observations which are not consistent with ICES view indicating huge decline in fishing stocks but instead they show evidence of very large stock size at sea."

Uncertain times

He said the Irish Fisheries sector is facing uncertain times with the ongoing Brexit negotiations and until everything is agreed between the EU and the UK nothing is agreed, and with the ongoing cuts to the Irish TAC such as what we have experienced since 2017 leads to very uncertain times for Irish Fishermen.