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Value of Irish Fisheries
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15-06-2008 1:54pm#1
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I have heard the such figures as 200 bn banidied mainly from this article below alot, so I decided to have a closer look at the accuracy of some of the assertions made. I posted this in the thread in AH yesterday but perhaps it it better here. People seemed more interest in the 'Describe your c*ck thread'
I am neither a fishing or economic expert so I may not be 100% correct but I think raises aReposted from another thread, originally printed in Magill...
STATISTICS BLOW MYTH OF IRELAND AS EU BENEFICIARY
- Because of fish supply, nation is second biggest indirect contributor to EU coffers
by Tom Prendiville, Daily Ireland, Wednesday 28 March 2006
Official European Union statistics reveal that Ireland's past image as one of Europe's largest financial beneficiaries is largely a myth.
Statistics indicate that, year on year off, Ireland has consistently been one of the biggest net financial contributors to Europe as a result of fish supply.
Official figures from the EU's statistical gathering agency, Eurostat, reveal that Ireland is second only to Germany as an indirect contributor to EU coffers.
First of all Eurostate fisheries reports are in regard to fish catches and the fishing sector in general.
The analysis of the overall contributions of member states to the EU is not within the scope of these reports and no mention of this is made, so that is the authors own assertion, not eurostats, based on his rather faulty calculations might I add.Although Ireland did well in extracting almost E40 billion (£27.8 billion sterling) in transfer funds from the EU, the fish extracted from Irish territorial waters has been worth almost E200 billion (£139 billion sterling) in comparison.
As I have said this figure has been grossly inflated and is based on incorrect assumptions so I'll get back to this one in a while.The EU fish wars have raged in Irish waters for decades, and have now left Ireland facing a massive crisis with the prospect of the extinction of many fish species.
The EU has a poor record over the past few decades with regard to fish stock protection so this is a valid point.Statistics covering the period from 1974 to 2004 throw some light on the true cost of Ireland's EU membership to date, and the enormous financial contribution Ireland has made to the European Community.
Since 1974, the accumulated value of fish taken from Irish territorial waters,"the second most important in the EU", amounts to a E200 billion (£139 billion).
The EU fishing industry is worth almost E20 billion (£13.9 billion) per annum.
On average, more than five million tonnes of edible fish varieties, valued at E7 billion (£4.8 billion), are fished from EU waters every year, 40 per cent of which originates from Irish waters.
So that is an estimated value of 7,000,000,000 bn / 5,000,000 t = 1300 euros per tonne. Which is interesting because if you look at the CSO statistics for 2004 for the volume and value of all landings at all Irish ports you get the following figures.
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/agriculture/current/fishery.pdf
Demersal Species (Cod whiting etc) - Total Catch 27,645 tonnes - Total Value 48,941,000 - Average Price per tonne = 1,773 euros.
Pelagic (Herring macrel tuna etc) - Total Catch 243,935 tonnes - Total Value 66,125,000 - Price per tonne = 271 euro
Shellfish - Total Catch 34,803 tonnes - Total Value 62,195,000 - Price per tonne 1787 euro
Deepwater - Total Catch 2,949 tonnes - Total Value 3,646,000 - Price per tonne 1236 euro
All Species - Total Catch - 309,332 - Total Value 180,907,000 - Average Price per tonne = 584 euros
I shall assume that this is typical of the catch in the North Atlantic by all nations fleets (and I see no reason why this would not be the case).
For now I will leave the claim that 40% of all fish comes from Irish waters uncontested.
So taking 40% of 5,000,000 tonnes this leaves 2,000,000 tonnes or so as coming from Irish waters.
Doing a crude calculation using these figures we have the following:
2,000,000 tonnes * 584 euros per tonne = 1.16 Bn per year.
By the authors calculations:
2,000,000 tonnes * 1300 euros per tonne = 2.6 Billion per year.The true commercial value of the haul, according to David Cross, who compiled earlier Eurostat reports into the fishing industry, is double that again after processing has been considered.
He said: "The value of the output of the processing industry is nearly twice the value of the catching sector. In other words, for every euro generated in fish sales another two are generated in processing."
The most important fishery in Europe are the seas west of Ireland, the so-called Irish Box, which produce over 40 per cent of all the edible fish consumed in Europe. In monetary terms, the seas off Ireland are worth E8 billion (£5.5 billion) a year to the EU.
His 8 billion figure I assume he gets as follows:
Value of catch + Value of processing which by his figures would be approximately 2.6 + 2.6*2 = 7.8 Billion.
I am also assuming that it is the accumulation of this 7.8 Billion per year over thirty years is where he gets his figure of 200Bn or so from (actually 234 billion by my calculation, nice of him to round it down).
By using the CSO figures for the price of fish per tonne caught by Irish fisherman in the North Atlantic and including his double processing value we get the following, .
1.15 + 1.15 * 2 = 3.45 billion per year.
Putting this crude figure into his even cruder calculation we get the following:
3.45 * 30 years we have halved the figure already to just 103 billion or so.
He also suggests that the value of outfish processing is double the value of the catching sector so I will assume that is in fact true. Now I am no economist but I would assume that the the processing industry must first actually buy the fish off those the catching sector, so surely the overall net economic output of the processing sector is roughly the same as the catching sector minus this overhead.
Revising my figure to take this into account we get a total value of about (1.15 + 1.15) = 2.3 bn taken out each year from what the author claims are Irish waters.
Taking another third off the total figure on this basis we are left with 66 billion taken out of Irish waters over thirty years.
But we have only gained 40m out of europe in funds, so I guess we are still net contributers. :mad:.
But this is based on my crude calculation of the average price of a tonne of fish caught in the North Atlantic as well as being based on the author assertion that 40% of all EU finsh are caught in Irish waters so lets see what the official Irish position is on the matter.
Here the author asserts these figure again just for emphasis.Every year, roughly two million tonnes are fished in Irish coastal waters. However, Ireland's share of the catch is miniscule and therein lie the current difficulties. While Ireland produces 40 per cent of the edible fish, the country's fishermen are only entitled to catch less than ten percent of
that. The rest is fished by foreign trawlers.
http://historical-debates.oireachtas.ie/D/0553/D.0553.200206260023.html
In this dail debate Trevor Sargent asks a question based on similar logic to that in this article. The answers are most illuminating.
The first thing that we learn is that that 40% of all EU catch comes from ICES zones VI and VII, a large proportion of which are international waters and not the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) - the 200 mile limit.
"Around 40% of all catches in EU Atlantic waters come from ICES areas VI and VII and the proportion of these made in the Irish 200 mile limit can only be estimated."
"Based on available data sources at our disposal and within the significant limitations of the assumptions made and the factors to which I have referred, we can estimate that the Irish and other fleets catch approximately one million metric tonnes of fish annually within the Irish 200 mile limit."
So esentially only half the number of fish that the author suggest are in fact fished from waters under direct Irish control. My crude estimate is now down to about 33 billion or so over the past thirty years.
As we have dipped under the 40 billion mark suggested by the author for direct EU funding it looks like we are getting back towards being a net benificary of the EU again.
Also the total amount of fish caught by Irish fishermen is estimated at 309,332 by the CAO figures I linked to earlier which means it looks like Irish fisherman get a cut of roughly 15% of all catches in zones VI and VII which includes both Irish and International waters not well under the 10% suggested by the author.
Subtracting this 15% from our running total we are now looking at a figure of 28 Billion for the net gain of other EU state from fishing in both international waters and irish owned waters surrounding the Island.
The dail answer also mentions a figures for 2001 of 315,000 tonnes with an estimated catch value of more than €250 million. Which seems to stack up pretty well with my rough estimates :pac:.
But sure all politicians are liars I hear you say. Is this evidence backed up any where else? Yes as a matter of fact. Here is a document that Scofflaw dug up a few weeks ago that mostly validates the assertions I have just made.
http://www.marine.ie/NR/rdonlyres/B274034C-8DCA-4CEA-ADD7-F0FC5652DA0B/0/Valueoflandings.pdf
This document suggests that the total tonnes caught is in fact only 1,500,000 tonnes per year around the coast of Ireland. Again the figure of a 15% total share from these waters are in pretty precise agreement with the figures above.
Looking more closly we discover that in the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone Irish (the area of water we would in control if we were not in the EU) the volume of the catch is roughly 680,000 tonnes and Irish fisherman have a 30% share of all the fish caught by volume in this area of the ocean. So a total of some 490,000 tonnes per year are fished from Irish waters by foriegn owned vessels.
As a matter of interest the value per tonne suggested by this report is 680,000,000 / 460,000 tonnes = 676 euro per ton. Higher than the figure I had earlier but way lower than the 1300 proposed in the article.
Lets putting these revised figures into the basic formulas and see what happens.
From Irish territorial waters:
490,000 tonnes * 676 euro per tonne = 332,710,000m per year.
Multiplying by thirty years that leaves gives not much more than 10 billion caught by foreign trawlers in Irish controlled waters over a thirty year period.
Also this is not money the government would have got directly, the actual net tax gain to the government would be no more than in the region of 1-2 billion depending on profit margins of the fishermen and applicable tax rates. How many roads and bridges would that have built compared to the 17 billion or so in Structural funds. Not much left over to replace the CAP payments either.
Of course these figures neglect a number of important aspects, one is that the price of fish was lower in the past as fish stocks were more plentiful, and also does not take inflation into account going back thirty years. Also the Irish fleet numbers were much higher when we first joined to the best of my knowledge.
Finally the Spanish, the largest fishing nation did not join the EU until 1986 so that was at least 13 years without their presence. When they joined it all but doubled the size of the existing EU fleet.In recent weeks, the government has been involved in a showdown with Irish fishermen, some of whom have been flaunting the conservation quotas. Meanwhile, in the midst of the acrimonious dispute, ten Dutch factory ships, each one the size of Croke Park, have been hoovering up fish with apparent impunity in international waters 12 miles off the coast near Cork.
"The situation with foreign boats is even worse, as our naval service does not even know what the quota is," said Eamonn Ryan, Green Party spokesperson for maritime and natural resources.
"This flawed system has allowed what is in effect the open fishing of our waters. They are hunting to extinction most of the fish stocks in Irish waters."
In terms of importance, the once teeming Mediterranean produces less than 500,000 tonnes of fish yearly.
Some critism of our illegal fishing which is both valid and true. The fact that there is illegal fishing taking place in international waters is no reason for us not to enforce the legislation within our waters though. It is true that the Mediterranean is nearly exhausted from years of over fishing as well.The Irish zone which extends out 200 miles into the West Atlantic is also the second most important in terms of Europe's edible fish stocks.
Adjusted Eurostat estimates for all fishing activity in Irish territorial waters since the mid-1970s indicate that over forty million tonnes of fish have been extracted.
Not too sure about this paragraph, as I don't know if he is talking about Irish territorial waters or what he thinks are Irish territorial waters. Taking 680,00 * 30 years = 20,400,000 tonnes or so I presume he is counting the international waters as well.
In short the entire article is a highly questionable0 -
marco_polo wrote: »People seemed more interest in the 'Describe your c*ck thread'
Do you have a link?
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Do you have a link?
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055319169
I haven't posted anything I swear 0 -
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