THE MAIN ISSUES


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Current legislation

Irish sea bass is protected by the Irish bass protection legislation which was first introduced in 1990 but only became permanent in 2006. There is a complete ban on commercial fishing for bass and anglers are only allowed to keep 2 in any 24 hour period which must be over 40 cm and cannot sell their catch.

FIF Proposal

In May 2009 the Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF) submitted a proposal to Minister Tony Killeen (fisheries) to change the Irish bass protection legislation to allow them to land and retain sea bass caught south of 51.30'N which they claim is offshore waters. They claim this area is at least 50km off of the coast and the sea bass caught south of the line will have no effect on inshore stocks. In fact the line they propose to fish south of actually cuts the coast in West Cork so the suggestion that it would not affect inshore stocks is quite frankly untrue.

Supporting Scientific Report

The FIF and also the Marine Institute (MI) who at least in part support the proposal to change the Irish bass protection legislation claim that the area they propose to fish in has been assessed in a UK scientific report (Pawson 2007 et al) and that the bass stocks are being sustainably fished there. Again this is simply untrue.

Value of Recreational Bass Fishing in Ireland

Last estimates put the value of recreational bass fishing in Ireland at Euro 8million a year just for the tourist sector. Many believe this is very much on the low side, as by the very nature of the sport, data is very difficult to collect. Either way it is still a valuable resource and one which is increasing quickly every year. Bear in mind that the first hand sale value of all commercially caught sea bass across England and Wales is only around Euro 3.5 million a year. Even with unlimited access to our inshore stocks commercial fishermen could never achieve a fraction of the return given to the economy of Ireland by utilising sea bass as a recreational resource. And of course with commercial access to our inshore stocks we would very soon end up like we did in the 1980's, with virtually no resource left for anybody to make a living from.

Discards

There is also a claim that sea bass are being caught and discarded in this area but no evidence to prove this point has been shown. In a recent report a figure of 64% is given for the percentage of fish that are being discarded around the UK. For the future of the Irish fishing industry this figure is wholly unacceptable and it would be far better to use more selective methods to protect our fish stocks.

Bass Anglers Involvement

Our concern is all the greater because those people and businesses involved in the bass angling sector, the only direct user stakeholders of the resource, have not been consulted or even seriously considered in the decision making process.

In an attempt to at least see how the decision about our future was being made and because we have had no involvement in the decision making process, Irish Bass made a request under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain any correspondence between the FIF and the Department of Fisheries and between the Department of Fisheries and the Department of Natural Resources.

We were refused on two grounds.
1. In order to afford time to the department to finalise their decision.
2. To prevent undue intrusion in the decision making process.

It is patently obvious that those people whose livelihoods depend on recreational bass fishing in Ireland are not seriously considered.