Fishermen's organisations have strongly criticised a scientific report published today calling for a ban on the fishing of cod and hake off Irish waters.
The Irish South and East Fisherman's Organisation says scientists are not listening to fishermen. It believes that fish stocks in the Celtic Sea have gone up in the past five years for most fish types.
Chairman Michael Walsh said this afternoon that if the report by the International Committee for Exploration of the Sea becomes EU policy, it will wipe out fishing communities around Ireland.
Fishermen protested in their hundreds in Waterford this week because of what they see as an attack on their livelihoods from a number of different quarters.
The Minister for the Marine, who was in Galway this afternoon turning the sod on a new Marine Institute, said that while certain fish stocks are dwindling, those in the industry have been successful in putting in place conservation measures in the past few years in the waters off the Irish coast.
Mr Ahern says that conservation measures are beginning to work but fishermen are worried that the Minister will not be able to win the argument in Brussels in six weeks' time.
