EU fisheries ministers were sitting into the small hours in Brussels this morning to conclude a final deal on national catch quotas for next year.
Progress was "slow but positive" in relation to some aspects, according to the new Federation of Irish Fishermen (FIF), which issued several stiff warnings to Minister of State for the Marine John Browne throughout yesterday designed to "strengthen his resolve".
For his part, Mr Browne described the situation as "tense", with Ireland facing "significant challenges" over European Commission proposals to reduce the share-out of 18 separate stocks exploited by Ireland and to cut up to 35 per cent of some quotas.
A historic arrangement known as the Hague Preferences was also under "concerted pressure" for abolition, Mr Browne warned. Annex VII of the 1976 Hague Resolution makes a special allowance for development of the Irish fishing industry in implementing the Common Fisheries Policy - and has been used by previous Irish ministers to secure additional quotas during December councils.
"The Minister of State may well go to The Hague and stay there if he becomes the first Irish negotiator to cede on this," Mr Lorcan Ó Cinnéide, chairman of the FIF, said last night in Brussels.
Mr Browne said he was pressing for eradication of a loophole under which some EU member states are fishing in Irish waters for "research purposes". Ireland has already raised this with the European Commission in relation to recent activities by Spain. Long-term effective controls on use of gillnets in deep waters were also being sought by the Irish negotiating team.
The Government is due to publish a strategy review of the industry, which was commissioned in the wake of the row over the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act. Mr Ó Cinnéide said the EU was proposing cuts which would have an impact on this strategy plan - and could also prejudice a separate EU review of cod recovery measures.
