It may have seemed for a while at least that the worst effects of what is increasingly looking like an oil crisis may have passed Ireland by.

In the UK there are already warnings in the media telling people not to panic buy fuel, while in Spain truckers have brought motorways to a halt with major routes into France and around Madrid being blocked as part of their protest against rising prices.

Here in Ireland though, it seems we are not immune. This week, the fishermen of Ireland finally rose up, for them enough is enough. Though they say that the rocketing price of fuel is not the main reason they have blockaded ports and held demonstrations they say that it has certainly accelerated their campaign.

Fishing is of course one of Ireland's very oldest industries and as an island nation, you would think at least that it is one industry that will continue to operate here as long as people eat fish.

Apparently, not so. Fishermen and their families are now on the very edge with whole communities threatened with extinction from Cork to Wexford to Donegal. They surely have a point. How can it be right that Irish fishermen are forced to throw back perfectly good fish because they don't have a license to fish that species while we import the same fish by air?

Fish imports are rising as cheap, farmed varieties are imported literally from the other side of the world. This does not make sense in a time when we are supposed to be trying to reduce our carbon emissions and use local produce as much as possible.

Clearly, fish stocks must be preserved but current policies seem to fly in the face of logic. Returning dead fish to the sea helps nobody. The fishermen have finally united and are taking a stand and the government will probably be forced, reluctantly to finally address their problems that have been ignored for a long time.

With predictions that oil may hit $200 a barrel in the not too distant future, this may be just the beginning of a sustained period of unrest not seen since the 1970s.

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment