McGrath Questions DAERA Support For Fishing Industry

SDLP calls for more DAERA support for the fishing industry in County Down

South Down SDLP MLA Colin McGrath has said that the DAERA Minister Andrew Muir MLA must “meet his commitments to local fishermen” and has expressed concern over the lack of progress on new permits at Strangford Lough

Commenting, the South Down Assemblyman has said: “Fishing is a way of life in South Down.

“In many respects it is a tradition which is passed down through generations with a heritage that goes back many hundreds of years in Ardglass particularly.

“The next evolutionary step for fisheries here was to be the implementation of the Fisheries and Seafood Development Programme (FSDP) following the report’s publication a number of years ago.

“The solutions are there. The development of our harbours in Ardglass and Kilkeel will allow these ports to have fresh life breathed into them, and open up fresh opportunities for job creation and sustainability. 

“Our fishermen met with the Minister back in March who made clear that he was committed to the programme, but was awaiting his budget allocation for the year to see if the money was available to progress with the FSDP.

“Here we are in August, still waiting for news of this. I have therefore written to the Minister to see when fishermen here will be updated on what is going on and when the next steps of the programme will be taken.

“I have already written to him regarding the need for a new programme of fishing licences at Strangford Lough as we have fishermen here desperate to fish in this area, but regrettably the Minister seems unwilling to move on the matter.

“Until this government starts treating our fishermen as integral parts of our economy then we will only get more dragging of heels. This is not good enough and is something I will be challenging most vociferously,” said Colin McGrath.

Currently, government cupboards are bare. The new Labour government has failed to back Harland and Wolf heading into financial diffs-cum-collapse, and the UK government has yet to commit itself to the huge black hole that is Casement Park as building costs have literally ‘gone through the roof’.

And with the UK Finance Minister’s comments this week that there is even a bigger black hole in the Treasury coffers to the tune of 22 billion pounds courtesy of the previous Tory government, it may be difficult to get that commitment from DAERA Minister Edwin Muir.

And against this backcloth of economic restrictions, lies a raft of issues…these include an imperative to increase UK and NATO defence spending because of international wars and tensions, a health service on a life-support machine, and senior citizen’s having their Winter Fuel payments scrapped forthwith.

Let’s hope that funding for the fishing ports can be found and the harbour infrastructural improvements needed are progressed to bring the ports up to speed for the 21st century.