“The saddest thing really is to see how, all around the coast, indigenous fishing people like me become extinct, we’re just not going to be there,” says former skipper and trawler owner Caitlín Uí Aodha in an interview with The New York Times.
Uí Aodha is one of a number of vessel owners interviewed by the newspaper in a feature on the impact of the current Brexit-related decommissioning scheme on the Irish fleet.
A total of 42 vessels from the Irish whitefish fleet are being scrapped, as part of the scheme funded from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve.
The fund was set up by the EU to ease the impact of Britain’s withdrawal and consequent loss of quotas, with Ireland bearing the largest burden among coastal states.
New York Times journalist Megan Specia and photographer Finbarr O’Reilly spoke to Uí Aodha in Co Waterford and to owners in Castletownbere and Union Hall, Co Cork, and Greencastle, Co Donegal
Cara Rawdon, 64, who has been fishing for 40 years from Greencastle, said he received a fair price for his boat and is retiring.
“There are no young men getting into it here,” Rawdon told the newspaper.
Coastal communities around Ireland “are being annihilated”, Rawdon said.
The Irish South and West Fish Producers’ Organisation has welcomed the report, which it has circulated unlocked on this link here