Minister for Marine Charlie McConalogue has promised to seek a quota of bluefin tuna for Ireland at the December EU fisheries council.
Large numbers of bluefin tuna have been reported by fishermen off the Irish west coast in recent years, but Ireland has no quota to catch the species- apart from a licensed catch and release programme for deep sea angling.
The tuna shoals have attracted Japanese and Korean vessels to the Irish coast outside the 200-mile EEZ, while Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain are among EU member states which have quotas.
Britain has now been awarded a quota of 63 tonnes of bluefin tuna for 2023-2025
Mr McConalogue noted that an increased total allowable catch of bluefin tuna has been agreed as part of a new management plan adopted at the recent International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meeting.
“Following discussions on this new management plan, the UK was granted an additional 15 tonne of bluefin quota and now has a quota of 63 tonnes of bluefin tuna for 2023-2025,” he said.
He said that Ireland had made clear to EU member states and the European Commission at EU internal meetings that Ireland considers that there is a case for an allocation of part of the increase in the bluefin tuna quota to be made available to Ireland for a targeted fishery.
“Given the prevalence of bluefin tuna in Ireland's EEZ, this is a request that we wish to be considered at council,” he said.
“I have therefore requested the opening of discussions at EU level to progress our case and I will be making a formal statement to this effect at next week's December Agrifish Council,” he said.
The EU share of global bluefin quota has increased in recent years to almost 20,000 tonnes.
The lack of a quota for Ireland was recently raised at Kerry County Council where Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Cahill said that not having a share of the bluefin quota is "a major missed opportunity for our fishing industry, including deep sea anglers".