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""I am looking forward to hearing from Irish stakeholders what their particular problems are and their suggestions for tackling them. I believe that dialogue among the interested parties is the surest way to identify the best solutions to respond to the challenges that the fisheries sector is facing.""
- Joe Borg, European Commissioner for Fisheries and Maritime Affairs
I've highlighed a couple of words above.
Stakeholders: Given that Pat the Cope made
sure he didn't meet any representatives of the angling fraternity, you may assume that he feels we are not stakeholders and as such can be completely ignored. Remember this come election time. I've written to him personally, to his office, to his party, and to every politician I can find an address for in this country. I consider myself a stakeholder and I have been ignored. For now. I intend to change that.
Problems: Too many to list, but the fact that we can have industrial trawling/netting right up to the high water mark should tell you something.
Suggestions: A 3 mile MPA right around the coast would solve so many problems. Ban gill nets altogether. We have one species out of the hundreds around our coast that has a quasi-protected status. Need I go on?
Dialogue among the interested parties: Are we not interested, or just not organised and represented?"