A voluntary code to prevent violent incidents at sea between Irish and French fishing vessels has been agreed in principle at a meeting organised by the Department of Marine.
Irish fishermen have, however, demanded a means of redress for aggressive incidents which have already occurred in recent months.
The latest and one of the most serious took place at the end of September when an Irish vessel, the Girl Jane, was dragged backwards by a French vessel, the Melodie, and had its nets cut in a number of places with a gas blowtorch. The incident, which occurred 17 miles off the south-west coast, caused damage of approximately £7,000.
The skipper of the Girl Jane, Mr Martin O'Driscoll, was among the fishermen at the meeting, which included representatives of a number of Irish and French fishing organisations, and senior officials from both the Department of the Marine and the French fisheries ministry.
The Minister, Dr Woods, said the Girl Jane incident was raised at the meeting and "representatives of both skippers are in contact and we hope to shortly see a mutually acceptable resolution".
The Irish South and West Fishermen's Organisation was asked to act as a liaison group for further meetings with French representatives to conclude a code of agreement by January next year.
Dr Woods told the meeting that prevention was better than cure and that his primary objective was to see peaceful co-existence between all fishermen. He said he had already put in place a rapid response system for precisely this type of incident through the Irish Marine Emergency Service. "IMES personnel are briefed on responding to these incidents and procedures to enable swift action to be taken were put in place from April last," the Minister said.
However, the secretary of the ISWFO, Mr Tom Hassett, said yesterday the rapid response "is no good to us when an aggressive incident occurs. They can't get a helicopter out to us in 20 minutes and if they did all they would see is the French vessel going one way and the Irish one going the other."
Mr P.J. Sheehan, the Fine Gael TD for Cork South West, raised the incident in the Dail last week. "This is not the first incident involving Irish, French and Spanish vessels as well," he said.
Last year, on St Patrick's Day, a Spanish vessel ploughed right through the Danny Boy and the skipper was drowned, he said. "There is no chance of what the Minister calls `tangible progress' and `peaceful co-existence' between fishermen unless there is action taken. Otherwise the Minister is only pussyfooting around."
Mr Sheehan said he was from a maritime constituency on the south-west coast which had endured "the rape of the fishing grounds off our coast for the past 50 years". He said they were "dealing with European fishermen who don't give a hoot. They've got super fishing boats against the small trawlers of the Irish".
