A National Disgrace

Pair trawling by deep sea commercial pelagic vessels within the confines of the Bandon River estuary, Co. Cork, Ireland http://bit.ly/1URV3X7 is allowed by law in Ireland, commercial vessels being legally entitled to fish up to the shoreline.

The above practice is undemocratic, an economically ineffective use of a key national resource and environmentally unfriendly.

Contact your public representative and stop this practice now.

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Are these pictures recent Ashley ?

This is going on in every bay and harbour in the country where these people locate sprat. Here's a recent episode: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=48378

I'm not sure when those pictures were taken but that particular boat visits many bays and harbours around the country. They were "up the estuary" in Waterford recently too!
There was a video clip posted on Facebook by a small boat where he was abusing the skipper of the boat pictured - Apparently there is an annual fishery carried out by small commercial boats. They did not appreciate the "big" boats appearing. The video was removed soon after posting.

The shannon estuary get hammered too despite the fact that there is a pod of protected dolphins in the area...

The race to the bottom is going at full tilt.

It would drive you mad if you let it

You never really hear of people fishing the bandon estuary except for summer mackerel off the road bridge. No wonder . . .

No quota on sprat either. Free for all in Donegal Bay too pair trawlers and ring netters towing through the bluefin tuna in September October

The same in Dun loaighaire I was night there and a black coloured trawler came into the harbour with it's nets out behind him done a figure of eight trawl in the harbour then left with the nets still out.
mickser

A month ago I saw a small trawler dumping nets into the Waterford Harbour, is this the stuff you're on about?