A local priest has called on An Taoiseach to visit Killybegs after the decision by a Danish vessel to leave the port without landing their catch.
Fr John Joe Duffy was commenting on the incident which occurred on Thursday when the vessel left the port without unloading its haul of more than 1,200 tonnes of blue whiting.
This occurred after a rule introduced by the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) imposed a different manner of weighing the catch.
“I call on the Taoiseach to visit Killybegs this weekend and sort out the chaos our coastal communities have been thrown into by the Dept (of Marine) and SFPA,” Fr Duffy said.
He added that the fishing community in Burtonport will clearly demonstrate to him why he needs to: “reshuffle, restructure, reform and reinvigorate the Dept and those who either seek to destroy Irish fishing communities or who are clearly out of their depth at sea and who have lost their bearings and know not their position on the charts nor where they are at.”
“If people give the Dept of Marine, the government and the SFPA any more time they will turn Killybegs into another Burtonport.”
Fr Duffy says it’s time for the entire industry, onshore and offshore, to unite and put an end to ‘this craziness’ that would not be allowed to happen in any other European country.
“The Taoiseach is in Dungloe. I ask him to go on a 5 minute journey to Burtonport where he can see at first hand what his government, the Dept of Marine and the SFPA, by their actions, will have Killybegs, Rosaveal, Castletownbere, Dunmore East, Howth etc looking like in the next few years,” he said.
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