Gunboat rhetoric: DUP ignoring facts here – but fisheries are a big Brexit issue
“The Clíona, the Meabh and the Mucha,
The pride of the Irish navy, When the Captain he blows on his whistle,
All the sailors go home for their tea.”
THE first verse of the old 1960s satire penned by none other than Ronnie Drew and Luke Kelly about the Irish Navy’s only ships came to mind when we learned about Ireland’s first recorded venture into “gunboat diplomacy”.
We might have sung the auld ditty with greater gusto if it had not come in a week when those Brexit tensions were dialled down. We had after all seen movement in the two big UK parties in recent days, with Theresa May abandoning the fiction of “no delay”, and Jeremy Corbyn finally accepting his party’s policy on a second Brexit referendum.
We were digesting the prospect of a no-deal Brexit on March 29 being far less likely, when we learned that two Northern Ireland trawlers were arrested in Dundalk Bay on Wednesday by the Irish Navy’s LÉ Orla and escorted to Clogherhead harbour.
The two small boats, out of Kilkeel, Co Down, were suspected of fishing inside Ireland’s six-mile territorial limit. Suddenly, a sectoral and somewhat localised fishery dispute was raised by timing and the Democratic Unionist Party’s penchant for melodrama to the status of a potential Brexit-related international incident.
We were reminded that the DUP’s Nigel Dodds learned all his rhetoric from the daddy of them all. Demanding an explanation from the Taoiseach over the incident, Ian Paisley’s long-time assistant said: “When Leo Varadkar talked about soldiers on the Border he didn’t mention the Irish sending warships with 76mm guns. These heavyhanded tactics with our fishing vessels demonstrate that Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney are entirely focused on Ireland and are fair-weather friends to Northern Ireland,” Mr Dodds continued.
It looked like a Brexit ‘own goal’ by Dublin. The sailors might have done better to take the songwriters’ advice and go home for their tea.
So, it was time to introduce a few simple facts – even at risk of spoiling a rather good-looking story. Firstly, this issue is not linked with Brexit, even though fishery is a huge concern for Ireland in the EU-UK divorce, as one-third of Irish fishermen’s catches, including 60pc of mackerel and 30pc of prawns, comes from UK waters. We will hear much more about fish before Brexit is sorted.
This row is about Irish fishermen, pursuing a hard and risky trade, trying to defend their livelihoods. There had been a so-called “voisinage” deal which allowed Northern Ireland
boats to fish in Republic of Ireland waters and vice versa. But fishermen in this jurisdiction felt strongly that this was being abused and brought a successful Supreme Court challenge against it. In 2016, the court ruled the practice had no proper legal basis. So, the Irish Navy was simply doing its job in applying the law.
The Taoiseach yesterday explained that legislation to restore the “voisinage” arrangement was framed in 2017 but this “got stuck in the Seanad”. Mr Varadkar, in Belfast last night, has pledged to resolve the issue.
But the fishermen who took the legal challenge have urged caution here. Louthbased senator Ged Nash, of Labour, has warned that merely reverting to the pre2016 arrangements will not do and local fishing families need protection.
Things were greatly helped at Drogheda District Court yesterday by Judge John Coughlan who applied the Probation Act for the two detained skippers and praised their integrity. The situation was further cooled by the skippers speaking of the Irish Navy’s courtesy and professionalism, and that of others involved.
The highly professional Irish Navy is a long way from the public sector poor relation lampooned by The Dubliners’ 1967 song. But it is also far from being an instrument of Brexit “gunboat diplomacy”.
The overall message is that fisheries are a Brexit issue.
Onethird of Irish fish is caught in UK waters. Fishing is a huge Brexit issue