Each time West Cork fisherman Daniel Healy sets out to sea, he wonders whether it’s worth his time. Soaring diesel prices, he said, are putting his livelihood at risk.
“Per trip, with five days out, at 1,000 litres a day – that’s over €5,000. It’s a big bill for me,” Mr Healy told Prime Time.
He has been fishing from Castletownbere for the last 29 years. For the first time, he has to worry whether he can pay the wages of his crew.
“The diesel is probably taking about nearly half of our gross earnings, every trip,” he said.
“The crew were wondering where all the money was going, until I showed them the receipts and how much the fuel is.”
Other local fishermen who fish further out at sea are even worse off, he said.
But, due to stricter post-Brexit quotas that were introduced last year, fishermen cannot increase their catch to compensate for their losses.
The French government is offering their fishermen 35c per litre of their fuel bills, while the Spanish government is offering theirs 20c per litre.
These subsidies were announced earlier this year after the European Commission made clear that member states could pay for the subsidies without breaching state aid rules.
The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said it has responded to fishermen’s concerns by adding a second month to the tie-up scheme.
However, when the Department announced the extension of the scheme, it made no reference to it being a compensatory measure for diesel prices.
A seafood sector taskforce, set up to manage the transition to the new quotas, has recommended that, as part of a voluntary scheme, 60 boats – polyvalent or beam trawlers – must now be cut or “decommissioned” from the Irish fleet.