"Conned" German article on Irish state of affairs

eVeNtInE

This post has been deleted.

washman3

Its what we get for voting failed schoolteachers,auctioneers,estate agents and general gombeen men into Dail Eireann.:mad:
Good post OP. But be prepared to be attacked shortly by the various vested interests and party cronies that monitor Boards.ie whose task it is to ridicule threads like this.!!

hatrickpatrick

Be prepared for an oncoming onslaught of contempt, OP. How so many people genuinely seem to be so dismissive and sneering when it comes to trying to have any kind of debate about our natural resources and how to use them is completely and utterly beyond me.

Ireland needs a government like Hugo
Chavez' or Mohammed Mossaddegh who won't take any sh!te from those who want to strip down the country and give absolutely nothing back in return for it.

Tangatagamadda Chaddabinga Bonga Bungo

We were certainly 'conned' into bailing out Anglo as the recent tapes further prove.


I don't think we've been 'conned' regarding our oil. We, as a country, produce almost no oil today.

The success rate of exploratory drilling in Norway is about one in five. In Ireland so far, it is about one in 25.

Drilling for oil is expensive, the state doesn't have the cash to fund this so we need private companies to do it for us, incentivising these companies through tax incentives to come here and search for oil and gas is the right thing to do.

I can remember Fat Rabitte saying awhile ago that there's nothing stopping them from increasing the taxes placed on oil revenue when/if they're here in good numbers and are profitable.

However inept or incompetent you or I may consider this government to be, we can be sure that if they think they can get more revenue in from the raising of a tax, they will do it.

Captain Slow IRL

I don't get why people are protesting in Belmullet at the moment - the government gave Shell permission to do what they're doing; why don't they go stalk Bertie instead?

Not that that would make any difference anyway!

Cee-Jay-Cee

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

I don't get why people are protesting in Belmullet at the moment - the government gave Shell permission to do what they're doing; why don't they go stalk Bertie instead?

Not that that would make any difference anyway!

Because theyve nothing else to do with themselves. I'd say the majority of them, if they were truly honest, couldn't give a flying fcuk about shell or the pipeline but because its government approved and a handful of aul biddys from mayo were against it, they joined in in support.

hatrickpatrick

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

I don't get why people are protesting in Belmullet at the moment - the government gave Shell permission to do what they're doing; why don't they go stalk Bertie instead?

Not that that would make any difference anyway!

Just because the government authorizes something, doesn't mean it's ok. See Edward Snowden and the recent NSA revelations even just for starters, then take a look at the above mentioned Anglo fiasco - need I continue?

CJC999 wrote: »

Because theyve nothing else to do with themselves. I'd say the majority of them, if they were truly honest, couldn't give a flying fcuk about shell or the pipeline but because its government approved and a handful of aul biddys from mayo were against it, they joined in in support.

And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the exact condescending attitude I referred to in my first post in this thread.

Captain Slow IRL

I'm not saying it is okay but shell aren't the only ones at fault here.

downonthefarm

shell are doing mighty work up there,look at all the guards who have finished their morgatges thanks to the o.t

K-9

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Be prepared for an oncoming onslaught of contempt, OP. How so many people genuinely seem to be so dismissive and sneering when it comes to trying to have any kind of debate about our natural resources and how to use them is completely and utterly beyond me.

I haven't seen much contempt, more exasperation at the belief that there are Billions upon Billions of Oil and Gas reserves of our coast, ready for Big Oil to exploit since the Ray Burke deal, yet Big Oil has shown a remarkable repugnance to, " Drill, Baby Drill".

Fisheries, yep, people do have a point on, but again, I don't see evidence for us losing Billions upon Billions. I have seen Killybegs and Burtonport decimated in my own County, but the financial claims still do not add up.

Ireland needs a government like Hugo
Chavez' or Mohammed Mossaddegh who won't take any sh!te from those who want to strip down the country and give absolutely nothing back in return for it.

If you had Venezuala's oil reserves it might just work.

Then again if you actually struck proper oil and gas reserves, we could be Norway, not Venezuala.

hatrickpatrick

Captain Slow IRL wrote: »

I'm not saying it is okay but shell aren't the only ones at fault here.

I accept that. I would also point out to you that Shell have been involved in a whole heap of very nasty sh!t all over the world in various contexts - now I'm not suggesting no other stakeholders have been, but I'd be willing to bet that none has been as widely publicised as Shell has. From their behavior in Nigeria to supporting animal testing at labs which are widely known through investigative journalism to mistreat animals, Shell seem to get their fingers into a huge number of pies which aggravate activists, and it's not just because they're a large energy corporation. There are a lot of reasons to hold Shell in a certain amount of disgust depending on your political views in a wide number of issues and so I presume this is why Shell in particular captures people's anger more so than other multinationals do.

We can debate that until the cows come home (honestly, is it all that unreasonable to object to stuff like this for example?) but that's a distraction from the real debate at hand here which is about Ireland's own resources and whether we should be insisting on the taxpayer getting a higher return on them. Let's not derail this thread and make it another s2s bashing thread FFS :rolleyes:

hatrickpatrick

K-9 wrote: »

I haven't seen much contempt, more exasperation at the belief that there are Billions upon Billions of Oil and Gas reserves of our coast, ready for Big Oil to exploit since the Ray Burke deal, yet Big Oil has shown a remarkable repugnance to, " Drill, Baby Drill".

Fisheries, yep, people do have a point on, but again, I don't see evidence for us losing Billions upon Billions. I have seen Killybegs and Burtonport decimated in my own County, but the financial claims still do not add up.

Even if the financial claims are obviously exaggerated the principle is surely what matters - Ireland should be able to exploit its resources in the way that other countries around the world are and actually make money from them instead of effectively giving them away. Call me cynical but I honestly doubt the government's lack of enthusiasm for increasing taxes etc on natural reserve discoveries has less to do with logistics or maths and more to do with which of their mates stands to benefit from the status quo. Such seems to be the case in most Western politics these days.

If you had Venezuala's oil reserves it might just work.

Again it's the principle, what I mean is I'd like to see an Irish government quit trying to be the star pupil and be rebel once in a while. Seems to me that our government is very obsequious on a lot of issues and that irritates me a little - you don't have to agree, of course, it's just a point of view. We seem to very rarely play "hardball" with anyone even when we're getting walked all over.

RustyNut

CJC999 wrote: »

I'd say

Such a convincing point.

K-9

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I accept that. I would also point out to you that Shell have been involved in a whole heap of very nasty sh!t all over the world in various contexts - now I'm not suggesting no other stakeholders have been, but I'd be willing to bet that none has been as widely publicised as Shell has. From their behavior in Nigeria to supporting animal testing at labs which are widely known through investigative journalism to mistreat animals, Shell seem to get their fingers into a huge number of pies which aggravate activists, and it's not just because they're a large energy corporation. There are a lot of reasons to hold Shell in a certain amount of disgust depending on your political views in a wide number of issues and so I presume this is why Shell in particular captures people's anger more so than other multinationals do.

We can debate that until the cows come home (honestly, is it all that unreasonable to object to stuff like this for example?) but that's a distraction from the real debate at hand here which is about Ireland's own resources and whether we should be insisting on the taxpayer getting a higher return on them. Let's not derail this thread and make it another s2s bashing thread FFS :rolleyes:

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Even if the financial claims are obviously exaggerated the principle is surely what matters - Ireland should be able to exploit its resources in the way that other countries around the world are and actually make money from them instead of effectively giving them away. Call me cynical but I honestly doubt the government's lack of enthusiasm for increasing taxes etc on natural reserve discoveries has less to do with logistics or maths and more to do with which of their mates stands to benefit from the status quo. Such seems to be the case in most Western politics these days.

The above 2 different posts seem contradictory to me.

I completely agree with Shell and the other oil companies as the bad guys, I think we all agree on what they are like, so why aren't they are bottom feeding around Ireland? They've such a great licence and yet minimal interest? As for benefit, who is benefiting? We are getting into CT territory now. Politicians and Big Oil are in this big thing, with big benefits, but nobody can quite put their finger on the huge benefit involved.

Again it's the principle, what I mean is I'd like to see an Irish government quit trying to be the star pupil and be rebel once in a while. Seems to me that our government is very obsequious on a lot of issues and that irritates me a little - you don't have to agree, of course, it's just a point of view. We seem to very rarely play "hardball" with anyone even when we're getting walked all over.

I'm with you on that. The Irish Government love big multi-nationals, Big Pharma, Google, Microsoft et al, the only Big Oil company we have is Shell, despite those Billions and Billions of Oil and Gas Reserves!

micosoft

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Be prepared for an oncoming onslaught of contempt, OP. How so many people genuinely seem to be so dismissive and sneering when it comes to trying to have any kind of debate about our natural resources and how to use them is completely and utterly beyond me.

Ireland needs a government like Hugo
Chavez' or Mohammed Mossaddegh who won't take any sh!te from those who want to strip down the country and give absolutely nothing back in return for it.

What? You mean a Government that can't even supply toilet roll to it's population? Fan-bloody-tastic. It's not a debate when one side uses completely untrue statements. It's beyond me how you could support Chavez who proved how badly you could run an oil rich country where you can't buy bogroll.... as for Mohammed Mossaddegh - some serious digging there. Do you base everything you "know" on Wikipedia?

OP - not one drop of oil has been recovered from off Ireland. Corrib is yet to ship a litre of gas. And now oil companies are handing back their licences despite the "generous" terms. Given the expansion of shale oil and the US's energy independence by 2030 it seems likely oil prices will go down (so much for peak oil). That means exploration for and extraction of Irish Oil is going to be uneconomic for the foreseeable future.

Burke was a terrible politician but the terms he set were reasonable then and still are. At the end of the day it is a fact that no oil is being pumped and it is a fact that few oil companies are even trying because it is uneconomic to drill oil in Ireland UNLIKE Norway where the state pays Oil Companies if their exploration drill does not yield oil - something not in our terms.

As for the fishieries myth Scoflaw put out the facts here - a billion over 30 years is not so impressive.

You go on about being a rebel - well guess what - those that keep us afloat get to call the tune and its only arrogance and hubris that suggests we could face them down (to do what?).

Our inability as an electorate to make informed choices and tendency to believe any old guff (see above) marks us as one of the stupidest electorates in Europe - I mean, who voted in all these awful politicians? Maybe if we focused on fixed our electorate by getting them to recognise the difference between fact and fiction we'd be on to something. But I have my doubts.

micosoft

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Again it's the principle

Is this the principle that when something suits us we take it (massive CAP subsidies, Infrastructure Grants etc) but when we don't (fisheries) it's ours?

Sounds like we'd have very few friends very quickly with that approach. In our dealings with the EU we've taken a lot more then we've given.

hatrickpatrick

K-9 wrote: »

The above 2 different posts seem contradictory to me.

I think the real issue is that a corrupt deal should be able to be invalidated afterwards and it's in that context that I would, although I rarely condone this, be in favour of rules being broken. Contracts signed by people who are known to be crooks should be ripped up and burned in a big fire in my view, that goes for anything from Ray Bourke's shenanigans to the Anglo guarantee.
In all honesty? I studied history in school and I always found it fascinating, when I was young and naive, to try and fathom why anyone would have voted for people like Mussolini or other fascist leaders (we'll leave the Nazis out of this since Germany was obviously a special case in terms of geopolitics at the time) and increasingly I'm coming to the conclusion that at a certain point people just say "f*ck all this red tape, let's take the bull by the horns and actually get something done for once". You can call that hyperbolic of course and if it wasn't so late at night I'd try and write something a bit more eloquent to underline what I'm talking about, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's sick of hearing that we're bound to past corrupt decisions legally and it's so iron clad that we can't possibly revisit the terms?

I completely agree with Shell and the other oil companies as the bad guys, I think we all agree on what they are like, so why aren't they are bottom feeding around Ireland? They've such a great licence and yet minimal interest? As for benefit, who is benefiting? We are getting into CT territory now. Politicians and Big Oil are in this big thing, with big benefits, but nobody can quite put their finger on the huge benefit involved.

Maybe there are big reserves in Ireland, maybe there aren't - I won't in any way pretend to be an expert in this field - but to refer to the OP's "conning" argument, it's not so much about that as it about the general principle that we shouldn't let anyone simply walk in and take our resources without us getting something out of it. What exactly is Ireland going to get from the corrib pipeline? How much of its profits will the exchqeuer actually see?

I'm with you on that. The Irish Government love big multi-nationals, Big Pharma, Google, Microsoft et al, the only Big Oil company we have is Shell, despite those Billions and Billions of Oil and Gas Reserves!

I wasn't just thinking of multi nationals tbh, our relations with the US over Shannon and the EU / ECB over Anglo also spring to mind - I'm not an undiplomatic person but I honestly believe that in certain limited circumstances there comes a time when you need to stop with the politesse and give someone the finger instead. There have been numerous occasions in the last couple of years when we've actually had bargaining chips in our hand of one kind or another and instead of playing them we've concentrated on being "the good boys in the class" and trying to get "gold stars" from various people (correct me if I'm wrong, Enda Kenny actually used the words "gold star" at one point in relation to Merkel, or am I dreaming that up?)

It just frustrates me to live under a regime which seems to simply not have any balls. Sometimes you have to play dirty, that's how the world unfortunately works.

micosoft

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

In all honesty? I studied history in school and I always found it fascinating, when I was young and naive, to try and fathom why anyone would have voted for people like Mussolini or other fascist leaders (we'll leave the Nazis out of this since Germany was obviously a special case in terms of geopolitics at the time) and increasingly I'm coming to the conclusion that at a certain point people just say "f*ck all this red tape, let's take the bull by the horns and actually get something done for once". You can call that hyperbolic of course and if it wasn't so late at night I'd try and write something a bit more eloquent to underline what I'm talking about, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who's sick of hearing that we're bound to past corrupt decisions legally and it's so iron clad that we can't possibly revisit the terms?

Jesus wept. Godwins law already.

hyperborean

I really do think that its time for a Chavez/Putin type leader, left-right whatever.
There are to many vultures feeding of the carcase of the irish population, most (citizens) of whom are blinded by the scam because the vultures run the media and people believe,

There are also the groups with most to loose if someone actually looks at what is going on in detail, the sytematic mugging of community wealth,

Disgraceful,

If I was a betting man I would say we have about 10 years before the far right or some other extremist group gets some traction and then we are in for trouble.

Tabnabs

micosoft wrote: »

OP - not one drop of oil has been recovered from off Ireland. Corrib is yet to ship a litre of gas. And now oil companies are handing back their licences despite the "generous" terms. Given the expansion of shale oil and the US's energy independence by 2030 it seems likely oil prices will go down (so much for peak oil). That means exploration for and extraction of Irish Oil is going to be uneconomic for the foreseeable future.

I'd be interested in seeing you source for all the companies handing back their licences? I can't remember a time when so much seismic surveying was carried out and test wells being drilled.

An Irish company (Providence) is very much to the fore in this work around the coast (the latest significant work http://www.energy-pedia.com/news/ireland/new-154354)

As is Fastnet Oil & Gas


People forget so easily that the Kinsale gas field came on stream in 1978 and peak production occurred in 1995 and for nearly two decades the main supply of gas available for Bord Gáis.

Oil brings jobs and well paid, highly skilled opportunities, visit Aberdeen or Stavanger (Norway) to see how they were changed. In time the states coffers will jingle, but initially employment to the west and south coasts are the biggest reason to support an offshore industry in Ireland.

Scofflaw

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Even if the financial claims are obviously exaggerated the principle is surely what matters - Ireland should be able to exploit its resources in the way that other countries around the world are and actually make money from them instead of effectively giving them away. Call me cynical but I honestly doubt the government's lack of enthusiasm for increasing taxes etc on natural reserve discoveries has less to do with logistics or maths and more to do with which of their mates stands to benefit from the status quo. Such seems to be the case in most Western politics these days.



Again it's the principle, what I mean is I'd like to see an Irish government quit trying to be the star pupil and be rebel once in a while. Seems to me that our government is very obsequious on a lot of issues and that irritates me a little - you don't have to agree, of course, it's just a point of view. We seem to very rarely play "hardball" with anyone even when we're getting walked all over.

To "make money from Ireland's resources" is the point of the current Irish petroleum tax regime. S2S etc insist that our tax regime is a "giveaway", despite which virtually all Irish waters remain unexplored, and only 130 wells have been drilled.

If you want to sell the right to prospect somewhere where only two significant commercial discoveries have been made in 50 years of exploration (and please don't reply with a list of current possibilities, because none of them have yet been found to be commercial), and you want people to take you up on that, then you need to make it attractive for them to do so.

Oil companies aren't put off exploration/development by stiff tax regimes where they know there's a good chance of finding oil in decent quantities. Where there's only known to be a small chance of finding small quantities, they are, because there are plenty of better places to put their effort.

We can have an oil tax regime that looks extremely attractive to us - high taxes, required government involvement, resource rents, no write-offs, etc - and no exploration.

Or we can have one that looks extremely attractive to oil companies - low taxes, no required government involvement, no resource rents, good write-offs - and still only a tiny amount of exploration.

We're just not a good prospect, as far as is yet known, and that's basically that. It's not good business sense for companies to spend hundreds of millions in Irish waters with little chance of a decent find, when they can spend the same money in Norwegian waters with ten times the chance of a find and 80% of their money back if they don't make one.

Feel free to tell me I'm "talking down Irish oil".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

Tabnabs wrote:

d be interested in seeing you source for all the companies handing back their licences? I can't remember a time when so much seismic surveying was carried out and test wells being drilled.

The last round of licensing didn't generate Exploration Licenses. All that was issued was a total of 13 2-year Licensing Options, which can be converted to Exploration Licenses, and I'm not sure whether any will be (time's up in October this year). A Rockall round in 2009 generated only two bids, both for the same acreage. There's just not a lot of interest in Irish waters, and I don't know how anyone can realistically claim there is.

As for the amount of wells to be drilled, how many are we actually talking about? Two or three? Yes, that's pretty spectacular by Irish standards, but that in itself tells you a lot. There are, as they say, some "positive developments" recently, but we've been there before, and it all evaporated after a couple of years.

cordially,
Scofflaw

micosoft

Tabnabs wrote: »

I'd be interested in seeing you source for all the companies handing back their licences? I can't remember a time when so much seismic surveying was carried out and test wells being drilled.

An Irish company (Providence) is very much to the fore in this work around the coast (the latest significant work http://www.energy-pedia.com/news/ireland/new-154354)

Providence handed back the Dalkey licence as we did not transpose European law but also around the "corrib" type situation building (all those Dalkey mummies in their Range Rovers complaining about how terrible oil was).
But aside from that see point four here: http://www.iooa.ie/facts-and-figures-page.html
And no - the above list are facts not opinion and are credible - you can verify with the Departments site: http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/Natural/Petroleum+Affairs+Division/

Though I support efforts to get some level of energy independence and think that oil and gas could be positive for Ireland IF it is there and IF it is managed correctly (do we have the restraint of the Norwegians?) I doubt too many jobs will be created. Offshore is specialist, we won't refine here, and Aberdeen and Stavenger have built competence in it like Dublin has for Software/Tech. If you are Irish and want in you still go to Aberdeen/Stavenger to train and get a job, then you will go to the rig. There will be jobs, just not that many and they raise the risk of Dutch Disease if many jobs were created (that said we don't have much of an industrial base to start with).

meglome

This stuff annoys the hell out of me. Posters in this very thread have been around for long enough to see the fish and oil story's debunked over and over. But they seem to feel something is wrong so they think something is wrong. Why do the actual numbers matter.

We'd all agree oil companies are greedy bastards yet even though we're supposedly giving away the family silver they're not bothered to take it. I dunno perhaps there's an obvious reason for that... we're not giving away anything that valuable (yet).

hyperborean

meglome wrote: »

This stuff annoys the hell out of me. Posters in this very thread have been around for long enough to see the fish and oil story's debunked over and over. But they seem to feel something is wrong so they think something is wrong. Why do the actual numbers matter.

We'd all agree oil companies are greedy bastards yet even though we're supposedly giving away the family silver they're not bothered to take it. I dunno perhaps there's an obvious reason for that... we're not giving away anything that valuable (yet).

Funny you should mention fish oil, do you know the QUOTA as a % of the whole for main commercial fishing stocks that the IRISH fishermen are allowed take from IRISH waters

Prawns?
Cod?
Whiting?

Answers on a postcard

Scofflaw

hyperborean wrote: »

Funny you should mention fish oil, do you know the QUOTA as a % of the whole for main commercial fishing stocks that the IRISH fishermen are allowed take from IRISH waters

Prawns?
Cod?
Whiting?

Answers on a postcard

Since presumably you do, perhaps you could write the postcard. And perhaps you could include in it the quota for Irish fishermen in other waters under the CFP, and the % of the quota the current Irish fleet would be capable of catching.

Ireland accepted the CFP as a tradeoff for CAP because at the time of entry there were about a million people working in agriculture, and about 10,000 working in fishing. Fishing is a marginal activity in Ireland, and no Irish government has ever set out to reverse that situation that I'm aware of.

cordially,
Scofflaw

hyperborean

Scofflaw wrote: »

Since presumably you do, perhaps you could write the postcard. And perhaps you could include in it the quota for Irish fishermen in other waters under the CFP, and the % of the quota the current Irish fleet would be capable of catching.

Ireland accepted the CFP as a tradeoff for CAP because at the time of entry there were about a million people working in agriculture, and about 10,000 working in fishing. Fishing is a marginal activity in Ireland, and no Irish government has ever set out to reverse that situation that I'm aware of.

cordially,
Scofflaw

You really believe that rubbish about the CAP being a trade off and Ireland having any sort of say in the CAPS direction?
Thats as gullible as it gets.

As for the fishing, the % is tiny, less than 20% of the fish in our water is landed by our boats, Billions (yes Billions) of euro worth of fish has being removed by other countries and all for what, a few bob to leave fields empty, to close sugar beet plants to ruin progress?

http://www.fishingnet.ie/media/fishingnet/content/commonfisheriespolicyreview/submissionsreceivedoncfpproposals2011/KFO_Response_CFP_Proposal_F.pdf

In 2009 the total catch





of fish in Ireland’s EEZ was 994,160 tonnes with a value of
€1.18 billion at first point





of
sale –Ireland’s share of this catch was 18% or 178,950 tonnes.

As for you assertion that the Irish fleet might have access to some magic land outside of our box that we can fish at leasure, Really? Do you know how much it is to fill up a gardner engine on a 60 foot trawler and its capabilties? can you provide the makeup of the irish fleet currently? Do you know the difference in that cost between now and say 15 years ago? see the realities of commercially viable and sustainable fishing are that if the french and the spannish have decimated their own waters with factory ships they should never be allowed into ours (yes ours)

You do however provide one key point that effectively agree's with my thoughts on this area, the irish govenment has as usual let us down in these negotiations, from the 70's to now. Fishermen never voted and as few as are left it makes no odds and for the fools in the upper echelon of the MoE to use our fishing resourse in negotiations, what do they care?

Scofflaw

hyperborean wrote: »

You really believe that rubbish about the CAP being a trade off and Ireland having any sort of say in the CAPS direction?
Thats as gullible as it gets.

As for the fishing, the % is tiny, less than 20% of the fish in our water is landed by our boats, Billions (yes Billions) of euro worth of fish has being removed by other countries and all for what, a few bob to leave fields empty, to close sugar beet plants to ruin progress?

http://www.fishingnet.ie/media/fishingnet/content/commonfisheriespolicyreview/submissionsreceivedoncfpproposals2011/KFO_Response_CFP_Proposal_F.pdf



As for you assertion that the Irish fleet might have access to some magic land outside of our box that we can fish at leasure, Really? Do you know how much it is to fill up a gardner engine on a 60 foot trawler and its capabilties? can you provide the makeup of the irish fleet currently? Do you know the difference in that cost between now and say 15 years ago? see the realities of commercially viable and sustainable fishing are that if the french and the spannish have decimated their own waters with factory ships they should never be allowed into ours (yes ours)

You do however provide one key point that effectively agree's with my thoughts on this area, the irish govenment has as usual let us down in these negotiations, from the 70's to now. Fishermen never voted and as few as are left it makes no odds and for the fools in the upper echelon of the MoE to use our fishing resourse in negotiations, what do they care?

Yes, I've been over the fishing figures repeatedly, in fact, and simply capitalising the word BILLIONS isn't something I regard as meaningful. The amount Irish fishermen take from Irish waters varies from year to year, but is generally around 30-40% by value of all the fish taken from the Irish EEZ - and we take roughly the same amount again from UK waters under the CFP. As such, we catch about 60-80% of the total value of fish caught in Irish waters, but catch it across our EEZ and the UK's.

The reason our catch is spread across Irish and UK waters is the point you allude to, that the Irish fleet is currently not really a deep-water fleet (the fishing fleet register is here). As to the Spanish, they take about a third of what we take.

"Fishermen never voted" - what? Fishermen vote the same as everyone else, but there aren't now and never were enough to outvote farmers, probably even in 'fishing' constituencies. The industry has been largely stable in terms of numbers of people involved since the 1950s - the difference is now that many more of the 10,000 or so involved are not Irish-born, because the Irish don't want to be fishermen, and apparently never have, given any other option.

Finally, the CFP/CAP tradeoff is well known - I'm not sure what you think the thinking of the Irish government was at the time, but as far as I recall, the decision that CFP's required capping of the Irish fleet and quota was a small price to pay for CAP and other EU funds was quite explicit. The quota wouldn't even have been seen as much of an issue, given that the Irish fleet didn't have the capacity to fish all of Irish waters then, and the government didn't intend changing that situation.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Jawgap

@hyperborean - you're quoting figures from the KFO - now what possible reason could they have for publishing figures that suggest there's more fish out there that there actually are - or that somehow the Irish industry is inherently disadvantaged?

The question is why can the Dutch, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen sail into 'our' waters fish, return to port and make a profit but Irish guys can't - even though they've less distance to steam. The scaled up and consolidated their industry while the industry here sat on its hands and has been trying to play catch up ever since.

While we're talking figures why don't you throw some up about the amount of money gone through the industry in terms of decommissioning payments? Or the estimated amount of IUU landed by Irish vessels? The fishing industry got a rough deal, but it hasn't exactly tried to help itself or take advantage of the opportunities present by our entry into the then EEC.

EDIT: Apologies to @hyperbolean, it looks like KFO were using the stockbook figures and not the CSO ones.

By the way the figures you quote are wrong - what gets landed and what gets fished are two completely different figures. It seems fishermen aren't always forthcoming about what they've caught

The Stockbook is a better guide to the state of the fisheries.

Interesting you say factory ships should not be allowed into our waters, but it's ok for 'us' to send the Dawn down to clean out the seas off the coast of West Africa, along with the Veronica, which may have flagged out, but it's still Irish owned.

who_me

Scofflaw wrote: »

We're just not a good prospect, as far as is yet known, and that's basically that. It's not good business sense for companies to spend hundreds of millions in Irish waters with little chance of a decent find, when they can spend the same money in Norwegian waters with ten times the chance of a find and 80% of their money back if they don't make one.

Feel free to tell me I'm "talking down Irish oil".

cordially,
Scofflaw

Well, the oil isn't going anywhere, and as drilling methods evolve and other reserves are being depleted, what's an uneconomical oil basin now might well be very profitable in the near future.

I'd rather we sat on the oil reserves, and make money from them in the future, than offer giveaway terms now and lose out on a massive, once-off financial opportunity.

To my mind, there seems to be an incredible lack of spine from our representatives, we seem to always be playing the "poor wee Ireland, sure what can we do? Maybe if we give in on all points, they'll treat us well" card. If Ireland were a girlfriend, it would be downtrodden, beaten girlfriend who still keeps begging her man to come back because she's convinced she could never get anyone else.

With the oil finds, we could be in a position of real negotiating strength. Let's not run up the white flag just yet..

Scofflaw

who_me wrote: »

Well, the oil isn't going anywhere, and as drilling methods evolve and other reserves are being depleted, what's an uneconomical oil basin now might well be very profitable in the near future.

I'd rather we sat on the oil reserves, and make money from them in the future, than offer giveaway terms now and lose out on a massive, once-off financial opportunity.

To my mind, there seems to be an incredible lack of spine from our representatives, we seem to always be playing the "poor wee Ireland, sure what can we do? Maybe if we give in on all points, they'll treat us well" card. If Ireland were a girlfriend, it would be downtrodden, beaten girlfriend who still keeps begging her man to come back because she's convinced she could never get anyone else.

With the oil finds, we could be in a position of real negotiating strength. Let's not run up the white flag just yet..

Personally, I'd rather we developed our alternative energy industries, because we know we have plenty of wind and waves out there. We can play second fiddle in the petroleum stakes - well, not even second fiddle in the orchestra, more a mouth-organ in our bathroom, badly - or we can aim for a new industry where we can develop useful and relatively unique expertise, without even mentioning climate change and fossil fuel dependency.

cordially,
Scofflaw