On last month’s RTÉ Prime Time, Wexford fisherman Seamus O’Flaherty, who operates a fleet of 22 commercial boats, had a few choice words about the Government’s plan to legally protect 30 per cent of Ireland’s maritime waters by 2030. “People have lived here in Kilmore and prospered since the 1840s on fish that they caught. You can’t wipe that out ... People around here don’t want to be just tour guides taking people out to see the whales.”
Except, of course, it can be wiped out – and it almost has been. Decades of overfishing, often beyond what scientists say is safe, have drained life from the ocean. Just this week, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), of which Ireland is a member, issued its latest advice, and it’s shocking: a 70 per cent cut to the EU’s mackerel quota next year, along with a 41 per cent reduction in blue whiting and a 22 per
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