A DONEGAL senator has
pledged his support for fishermen who protested in
Dublin yesterday to highlight the spiralling crisis
in the industry.
Senator Pearse Doherty said fishermen were under
huge pressure not just from rocketing fuel prices,
but also from the pressure brought about by 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," he said.
"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."
He said much was being made, by the Lisbon Treaty
'Yes' vote campaigners, of the benefits of EU
membership.
"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." |
