The tragic loss of life off the Waterford coast is another blow to an ailing fishing industry, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Met Éireann has recorded it and fishing crews know it already. This winter is proving to be one of the most "gale-swept" in years - and at a time when the fishing industry needs every break it can get. That the new year should start with the loss of seven lives in two sinkings, within hours and miles of each other, is almost too much for communities right around the coastline.
"You have this pain at the pit of your stomach," Martin Howley, former Donegal skipper and chair of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation (KFO) told The Irish Times this week. "It's hard to find the words." Howley's colleagues among the north-west mackerel fleet have been sitting in port all week, and it is not primarily due to a relentless and record series of storm-force winter gales which have been pounding the Atlantic seaboard for almost three months. The opening of the fishery has been delayed by the Department of the Marine for a series of reasons, including EU sanctions.
The delay may be justified on strictly administrative and conservation grounds, but it will narrow the opportunity which vessels have to avail of limited quotas before the fishery is closed. The EU Common Fisheries Policy has long been criticised as an unworkable system, some of its more curious regulations appearing to be drawn up at the expense of the safety and economic survival of fishermen.
One such daft regulation is the four-hour rule, introduced to eradicate illicit landings. Under the ruling, vessels must give four hours notice of intention to land, even if they are small boats fishing an hour from shore. On Thursday night, shortly after the alarm had been raised about the south-east's second sinking, another Irish vessel working on the Porcupine Bank was refused permission to take shelter in the west because he hadn't given his requisite notice.
Contacted by The Irish Times, the Department of the Marine said that there had been a misunderstanding, the situation had been rectified and the vessel could land. Industry representatives had been assured that safety was never to be compromised for the sake of compliance with the rule, the spokesman said.
If it wasn't for an unpredictable Atlantic reflecting a changing weather pattern, fishing should never be safer. Over a decade ago, when the Donegal vessel Carrickatine vanished off the north-west coast with the loss of six lives, there was an outcry over the dilapidated state of the whitefish fleet. The then Fine Gael-Labour coalition initiated a whitefish renewal programme, supported by the EU and continued under this administration.
SAFETY STANDARDS ON vessels were reviewed, including training and compulsory wearing of lifejackets which came into law five years ago. The State's rescue services - so long dependent on help from Britain through the RNLI lifeboat network and military air/sea units - were already being upgraded into a world-class service as a result of a community campaign initiated in Donegal.
State grant-aid was given for equipment, which has undergone a significant technological revolution. Lifejackets and survival suits are now far more user-friendly and discreet. Emergency position indicating radio beacons (EPIRBS) carried by vessels emit an immediate alert by satellite on impact with water. Under monitoring systems, most full-time craft are also fitted with satellite boxes to track their movements at sea.
Not all equipment is perfect, according to skippers who point out that wearing survival suits while working on board a vessel can be impractical. Also, hydrostatically (automatically) released life rafts can be difficult to reach if a vessel has to be abandoned in a howling gale.
"The life raft is out inflated on the water, and its connecting cord with the vessel has to break," one skipper, who preferred not be named, explained. "However, you'd have to be a terrifically strong swimmer - and you can be hampered by a lifejacket - to reach it if it takes off in the wind!" Even safety experts who believe there should be more enforcement of the lifejacket regulations admit that commercial pressures on vessel owners and crews are enormous. In the past couple of years, new vessels built with EU and State aid and encouragement have found it impossible to make ends meet. Skippers who were encouraged to take financial risks have found themselves facing enormous fines in court. This case was made by the industry during last year's row over the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill, when Minister for Marine Noel Dempsey made it clear he had little sympathy with the future of coastal communities.
Increasing scientific alarm over the state of stocks has resulted in cutbacks in quotas, and a much more rigorous monitoring regime. Allied with the rising price of fuel, many vessel owners have quit the business. Irish crew berths have been taken up by foreign nationals - including the two eastern European men who died off the south-east this week. A study undertaken on the Kerry fishing community found that the full economic impact of this was being "softened" by alternative work in the construction industry.
Few of these factors can be examined by the State's independent Marine Casualty Investigation Board (MCIB), which is now charged with investigating the cause of the sinkings of the Pere Charles and Honeydew II. It is shortly due to report on the loss of the Rising Sun lobster boat off Hook Head in November 2005, and is investigating the separate sinking last March of the beam trawler Maggie B in the same sea area.
Location of the vessels which sank this week will not only provide some small relief to the agonising wait by five families, but will also be crucial to the MCIB's work. In the case of the Honeydew II, it will be assisted by the two Lithuanian survivors. In the case of the Pere Charles, a detailed examination of the hull, including any signs of collision with a large object, may give some indication of the cause. The vessel had hauled its nets, but a craft loaded with fish tends to be more vulnerable in heavy seas. The herring would have been stored in "fish ponds" or compartments on the vessel, but any shift in that arrangement could have had catastrophic results.