Marine Minister Charlie McConalogue on Tuesday (10 January) today met fishing industry representatives at the Marine Institute in Galway and discussed the negotiations ongoing this week, between the EU and Norway, on a fisheries agreement.

The minister said: “Our interests relate to blue whiting and the level of the transfer of blue whiting quota to Norway to pay for other fishing opportunities that the EU is seeking and the level of access to EU waters which, in practice, involves fishing in Ireland’s 200 miles zone. These negotiations will recommence on Wednesday. The discussions with Irish industry representatives today were very useful and enabled a full consideration of the issues and the negotiating options.”

He added that he is pleased a number of Irish fishing industry representatives will attend this round of negotiations in Brussels and will assist his team as talks progress.

“I am continuing to engage directly with Commissioner Sinkevicious, EU Commissioner for Fisheries and the Environment to ensure that he understands Ireland’s concerns and its priorities in these negotiations,” he said.

Minister McConalogue also used this opportunity to provide an update on the voluntary fishing fleet scrappage scheme as recommended by the Seafood Task Force.

The scheme was focussed at whitefish polyvalent and beam trawl vessels, with the objective of voluntarily removing 8,000 GT and 21,000 KW to rebalance the fleet and improve the viability of the remaining fleet by making available more quota to them.

The minister briefed the industry that due to the level of interest from vessel owners, and the calculations from Bord Iascaigh Mhara on the levels of direct payments required to meet the objective of the scheme, that an increase in budget was required.

Additional funds have been successfully sought from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and an updated EU State Aid approval has been secured, he added.

“In order to ensure that all fishers who wished to take part in the scheme could do so and that the targets set by the Task Force could be delivered, I have increased the budget for direct payments under the scheme from €60 million to a maximum of €75 million with tax reliefs increasing proportionately,” the minister said.

“Offers for voluntary decommissioning will now be made to 57 vessel owners and the decommissioning of those vessels will make available an extra €34 million in quota for the remainder of the whitefish fleet improving their profitability and securing the future of the fleet.

“I am satisfied that I have now enabled all those who have chosen to apply for this scheme receive the full value of the scheme payment as guided by the Seafood Task Force recommendation.”

Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM) has released further details of Ireland’s third whitefish fleet decommissioning scheme.

The information has been issued as a guide to fishing vessel owners who have registered expressions of interest in the scheme, which is being rolled out due to loss of quota as a result of Brexit.

The EU has approved the 80 million euro scheme – involving direct grants of 60 million euro and 20 million euro for tax adjustments – under the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR).

Described as “voluntary”, it aims to decommission up to 60 vessels to ensure sustainability of the remaining fleet.

Five categories have been created to calculate the amount which vessels affected by loss of Brexit Trade and Co-operation Agreement (TCA) stocks may receive, BIM says.

It provides for a basic payment of €3,600 per gross tonne(GT), and a “catch incentive premium” of up to €8,400 per GT for quota species covered under the TCA.

This will be calculated by indexing total vessel landings of quota stocks against the maximum total landings of quota stocks by any one vessel within each segment.

Landing data will be supplied by the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), and will relate to a two-year period – either 2018 and 2019, or 2020 and 2021.

The fleet segments which the scheme applies to are: beamers; hake gillnetters’ prawn vessels 12-18m; prawn vessels 18-24m; prawn vessels 24-40m’ seiners; Tier 1; whitefish 12-18m: whitefish 18-24m; whitefish 24-40m;whitefish/prawn <12m.

Vessels within 80% or higher of the maximum total value of landings of TCA stocks within each fleet segment are eligible for 100% of the €8,400 per GT, BIM says.

• Vessels with between 60-80% of the maximum value are eligible for 80% of the €8,400 (€6,720 per GT).
• Vessels with between 40-60% of the maximum value are eligible for 60% of the €8,400 (€5,040 per GT).
• Vessels with between 20-40% of the maximum value are eligible for 40% of the €8,400 (€3,360 per GT).
• Vessels with landings below 20% of the maximum value are eligible for 20% of the €8,400 per GT (€1,720 per GT).

BIM gives an example to illustrate this - if a vessel with the most landings of TCA quota stocks in the ‘Whitefish 12-18m’ category landed 10 tonnes, any other vessel in the same category which landed eight tonnes or more would be eligible for 100% of the catch incentive premium.

Grant payments will also vary depending on the age and size of the vessel, under a points scheme.

Vessels over 30 years old will get 20 points, while vessels between 20 and 29 years old will get 10 points. Vessels between 10 and 19 years old will get five points.

Vessels greater than 150 GTs will get 20 points; vessels between 100-150 GTs will get 10 points; and vessels between 50-100 GTs will get five points.

Points will also be awarded on the average number of days fished during the two 12-month periods from January 1st 2018, and December 31st, 2019. For example, vessels fishing more than 180 days during this period will get 30 points.

Points will be given on a graded basis also for total landings of TCA stocks by weight as a percentage of total catch average over the two 12-month periods from January 1st 2018, to December 31st 2019.

BIM says EU BAR State Aid Guidelines for the fishery and aquaculture sector stipulate that the amount of aid for permanent cessation related to Brexit will be reduced by the amount of temporary cessation support – as in voluntary tie-up funding - and the amount of income loss support received by operators.

Support provided directly to crew as part of these schemes, such as voluntary tie-up, will not be deducted from the permanent cessation aid payable to vessel owners, it says.

The Brexit Permanent Voluntary Cessation Scheme will open for applicants in September, BIM says.

It says it is not in a position to provide individual calculations in advance of applications being received, but has provided an email address for further queries – [email protected]