Sir, - The plight of Irish fishermen has never been worse. Restricted by quotas and tonnage, rammed on the high seas by superior Spanish craft, starved of funding, and finally harassed and humiliated by our own Navy, or "Fishery Protection Service". This is the latest sad chapter in the great untold story of Irish political and economic life: the grand larceny and plunder of the wealth of our seas by legalised pirates under the stewardship of the EU.
Our fishermen were always held in high esteem as primary food gatherers and doubly so for the risks and peril involved. What a travesty, then, to see them effectively criminalised by penal and perverse laws conjured up by bureaucrats who would not know a mackerel from a monkfish! What a travesty, then, to see the starchy personnel of the Naval Service acting as the agents or minions of faceless EU officials and servile statesmen in the Departments of Marine and Defence. No sympathy is to be expected from the bench either, it appears, as judges seem to implement the law without mercy or discretion, demanding a crippling sum in bonds as they hide behind their "laws". Yet overfishing and dumping by the factory ships goes unchecked and unpunished.
The policies and programmes of the EU are becoming more sinister and oppressive by the day. Could it be that now the bear is showing its claws? - Yours, etc.,
M. Reidy, Kilmore, Tralee, Co Kerry.