The Irish fishing industry is widely dissatisfied with the outcome of the agreement struck between the European Union and Norway.
‘Norway, a non-EU member, secured more out of the deal than Ireland,’ said Irish Fish Producers Organisation chief executive Aodh O’Donnell.
The EU-Norway deal gives Norway access to 224,000 tonnes of blue whiting in Irish water this year, up 110,000 tonnes on the amount allowed in 2022.
The Irish industry gets 52,000 tonnes – although this is a 28,000 tonne increase on last year’s figure.
In return, Ireland gets 258 tonnes of arctic cod and 2640 tonnes of Atlanto-Scandian herring in Norwegian waters.
‘If you do the sums, you can see they can catch more than four times more blue whiting in Irish waters than we can. This last-minute St Patrick’s Day deal does nothing to address Ireland’s unfair share of EU fishing quotas and rights,’ Aodh O’Donnell said.
While unhappy with the lack of quota parity between the two countries, Irish fishing representatives consider that there are upsides to the deal in stopping Norway short of getting the virtually unlimited access to Irish fishing grounds that had been its initial demand when the extended negotiations began at the end of last year.
Irish fishing industry organisations had been concerned that a a deal could be struck by the EU — in spite of objections from Ireland — tat would have given EU member states greater access to cod stocks in Norwegian waters in return.
