Gerard Kelly outside Leinster House this morning.
This morning.
Leinster House, Kildare Street, Dublin 2
The Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed has declined calls to meet Donegal mussel fisherman Gerard Kelly (above) who began a hunger strike yesterday in protest at legislation to restore reciprocal access for Northern Irish fishermen to Irish waters.
Gerard, from Greencastle, County Donegal is protesting the planned restoration of the Voisinage Arrangement which would allow access for fishermen on both sides of the border for up to six nautical miles off the coast of each jurisdiction.
Minister appeals to fisherman to stop hunger strike (Irish Times)
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Are there no net benefits to be had from this arrangement? Does it scale?
spare the rod, spoil the child.
You have to bow to his resilience. I think i’d probably keel over TBH..
He just doesn’t want to shell out
He’s not biting.
Could just be coddin’ us, the little scampi.
he doesn’t want a united Ireland, I take it?
Our fishing grounds yielded up 270 billion plus of fish to our EU partners since we joined the EU
We have received a total of 10% back in EU grants since we joined
Which is around 27 billion
We often talk about farming and what it got and we also talk about grants for roads for infrastructure
We forget that natural resource just like we forget our water resources which we have copious quantities of and that also could be in years to come a massive resource as many countries face drought
And water could be our oil to be exported
But we do not think about this and how we can develop it simply because we take it for granted
We forget because its around our island that a value must be put on what we surrender
Our fishing grounds now will face increased EU ships moving in to fish in Irish waters instead of UK waters
And that will mean our quotas will yield less for our fishing industry
These fishermen feel they have been abandoned and no one is representing their interests