Tag Archives: Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue
Irish fishermen face double Brexit whammy as EU funding deadline looms
Irish fishing businesses face a double whammy this year of having less fish to catch and being unable to draw down EU Brexit funding in time. Tight deadlines, a lack of labour and materials shortages are putting at risk hundreds of millions of euros worth of funding from Brussels that MEP Billy Kelleher said is crucial to keep coastal communities afloat. “All the plans are in. Everything is done. It’s just the inability to draw down,” Mr Kelleher said of the EU funding. “Brexit hasn’t gone away. The impact of it hasn’t gone away. So I mean it would be a shame to forfeit funding that could ameliorate or reduce the impact of Brexit in certain communities.” >click to read< 12:11
Calls for €12m fund to help inshore fishing industry
The Government is to be asked to give Ireland’s inshore fishers more than €12m to help them deal with the disruption to their markets caused by the war in Ukraine and the pandemic. The market in shrimp, for example, has collapsed, with one group of around 600 smaller inshore fishers losing an estimated total of €5m in the build-up to last Christmas. Their representatives have seen more than €100m in packages to help the much larger, offshore sector boat owners deal with the negative impacts of Brexit, which is mainly the cut in quota and resulting 40% fall in income. But they say that despite having 91% of the country’s entire fishing fleet, and employing the majority of Irish fishers, Ireland’s inshore sector has, by comparison, received around €3.7m. >click to read< 11:26