Overfishing in Ireland

Ireland consistently ranks amongst the worst EU countries for overfishing and remains the first and only Member State to have its fishing control plan revoked by the European Commission.

Two crucial outcome targets in Goal 14: Life Below Water are to switch to sustainable fishing and to end subsidies contributing to overfishing. While shellfish fisheries can use low impact gear such as pots, the enormous nets used to catch fish lead to unnecessary amounts of bycatch also being harvested.

Gill nets made of thin plastic threads invisible to fish are used by leaving them hang in the water column where they are meant to entangle and catch fish by their gills. However, these nets which can be hundreds of metres long are also responsible for strangling countless sharks, whales, dolphins, seals and seabirds along the Irish coast.

Gill nets have been banned by the United Nations in international waters and by many other countries in their own fishing territories, however they are still used in Irish waters.

Set longlines, which are composed of thousands of meters of fishhooks, are responsible for the highest percentage of seabird bycatch. Trawling is one of the most harmful fishing methods to date, involving huge nets being dragged through the water or along the ocean floor, catching everything in their paths. Many different types of trawling occur around Irish waters, for example:

Beam trawls are used to catch cod, haddock, whiting, plaice and many other important stocks. However, beam trawls are composed of heavy-duty nets attached to a long steel beam which is dragged along the bottom, completely destroying the delicate corals and sponges that inhabit the ocean floor.

Otter twin trawling is a special trawling method designed to increase horizontal fishing area, where two huge nets are dragged just above the ocean floor. This is typically done to catch Dublin Bay Prawns, meaning the mesh used to make the nets is very fine. Although these trawls don’t cause as much damage to the seafloor, the fine mesh results in a considerable amount of bycatch, particularly juvenile and small fish species.

Mackerel Markets

Mackerel is one of the most popular fisheries in Ireland, but it has been overfished by an average of 41% every year since 2010. Speat, the main food of mackerel, have been overfished by an average of 166% above scientifically advised quotas.

Mackerel is one of the most popular fisheries in Ireland, with huge numbers being caught by both commercial vessels and anglers during the summer months. These fast, silvery fish form vast shoals as they move inshore, following even larger schools of their favourite food, Sprat (Sprattus sprattus).

Each year Foras na Mara, the Marine Institute of Ireland, releases a report known as The Stock Book on the state of Irish fishery stocks and their updated conservation and/or management plans. From 2019 to 2021, an average of 62,900 tonnes of mackerel worth €70 million were caught annually by Irish fishing vessels. According to the 2022 report, a total of approximately 1,131,416 tonnes of mackerel was caught in Irish waters in the year 2022. Due to ongoing international agreements, Ireland’s fisheries are shared with number of other countries such as Norway, France and the United Kingdom. Currently, there is no agreed management strategy for mackerel between any nations fishing this stock.

On average, 14,000 tonnes of sprat worth €3.3 million are also caught annually in Irish waters. Sprat consume plankton and form the base of the marine food web, making them a vital species for the health of our seashores. Mackerel, herring, hake and cod are all important fisheries that heavily rely on sprat as a food source, in addition to endangered seabird and cetacean (whale and dolphin) species. However, sprat are afforded no protection under Irish law, and no European Total Allowable Catch (TAC). Having no TAC means there is:

No limit to how many thousands of tonnes of Sprat can be caught

No protective quotas, seasons or minimum size requirement

No management plan

No stock or population assessments

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is the leading international marine science organisation for the North Atlantic ocean, advising governments and fisheries on how different species and stocks should be managed. The ICES has advised that for 2023, no more than 782,066 tonnes of mackerel and 2,240 tonnes of sprat be caught in total by all nations, a significant reduction from previous years.

Despite international calls to review the exploitation of mackerel and sprat fisheries, no management plans for Irish fisheries have been put in place as of 2023. In fact, the total catch of mackerel has exceeded scientifically advised quotas by an average of 41% since 2010 and sprat by an average of 166% since 2013! Unfortunately, Ireland’s mismanagement of key fisheries is nothing new.

Relying on the same fish species to support our entire market is highly unsustainable.

Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing remains one of the greatest threats to conserving and protecting marine biodiversity, but it is often indirectly supported and encouraged by fuel, equipment and fishery expansion subsidies. By artificially lowering the price of fish, consumer demand and the incentive to overfish is kept high. Instead of supporting sustainable practices, small scale fisheries and people, these harmful subsidies encourage the expansion of fishing fleets and the overfishing of dwindling stocks.

Despite Ireland’s membership of the European Commission and its commitment to implementing the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), Ireland still isn’t providing adequate support to small-scale and island fisheries, leaving local markets to shrink, and industrial fishing fleets to continue overfishing and other unsustainable practices.