Only 20 fishing boat owners accept State's decommissioning offer

Although the statement centred around the publication of its two-year study on the fishing industry’s carbon footprint, it mentioned the controversial decommissioning scheme in passing.

Of the take-up and the fact that less than half have gone for it, BIM simply said: “Some 57 letters of offer have been issued with total funding of €75m. To date 20 owners have accepted.” 

The Irish Examiner has asked BIM for further comment as to how it regards the performance of the scheme.

The current scheme and a number of tie-up schemes over the past two years were designed to help mitigate against the quota and financial losses Irish fishers sustained because of Brexit.

Both schemes are funded by the €1bn Ireland got from the EU’s Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR) fund.

This was set up to help member states most affected by Brexit to deal with the resulting adverse economic, social, territorial, and environmental consequences.

Owners of 57 boats received offers to join the decommissioning scheme, which was one of the key recommendations of the Seafood Task Force set up by Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue.

The closing date for the scheme’s acceptance of offers is March 2.

Proved unpopular

As the Irish Examiner reported earlier this year, the decommissioning scheme has proved unpopular with the fishing industry because not enough money was put into it.

After it was originally capped at €60m, Mr McConalogue put an extra €15m into the scheme.

Grievances about the scheme were aired at a meeting in January convened by the Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation in Limerick.

Boat owners accepted for decommissioning will only get a proportion of the total value of their boats back and instead of being able to sell them on, they will have to be destroyed.

Any fishing boat owners accepted for decommissioning will not only have to scrap their boats, but all boat owners will also have to pay back funds they received during the pandemic.

A number were paid not to fish for a number of months over the past two years under the Brexit Temporary Fleet Tie-Up Scheme.

Patrick Murphy, chief executive officer at Irish South and West Fish Producers Organisation, opposed the decommissioning scheme because he did not think the money on offer honestly reflected the “true market value” of boats being decommissioned.

Irish Fish Producers Organisation chief executive Aodh O’Donnell said: “The criteria mitigate against optimal uptake of the scheme. The key issue here is the impact of Brexit on the quotas.

The only way the fleet can be resilient is if there is enough quota for the remaining vessels.

The post-Brexit EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) led to the transfer of a substantial amount of EU fishing quotas to the UK.

However, while Ireland’s quota cut helped the TCA over the line, the deal has made it harder for Irish fishers to earn a living.

Ireland’s losses from Brexit will amount to around €43m a year by 2026 as part of a five-year EU-UK post-Brexit quota “adjustment” phase.

This amount is the biggest single loss for any country, leading to repeated calls for equitable burden-sharing among all member states.

The fact that less than half of those who applied have accepted offers from BIM is likely to have a knock-on effect on the industry.

If, as appears unlikely with so few days left before the scheme closes, all 57 offers were accepted, their collective quota — the share of the amount of fish the EU says Irish fishers can catch — would be shared among the remaining boat owners.

It was hoped that this small increase in quota would help remaining boat owners, already struggling with a string of challenges including higher fuel prices, falling markets due to the war in Ukraine, and Brexit.

This article was updated on February 24 at 4pm.