Fishermen win court case over ship sizes

The owners of 20 Irish fishing vessels have won a court case against the European Commission over its refusal to allow them increase the size of their vessels.

The ruling was given by the European Court of First Instance. The legal case concerns an application by the owners of vessels from Donegal, Cork and Galway to the commission to increase the tonnage of their trawlers to enhance safety, hygiene and working conditions under an EU programme.

In April 2003, the commission ruled that the Irish vessels were not allowed to increase tonnage as they were unable to fulfil the criteria for the scheme. It meant that many vessel owners had to buy extra tonnage from other vessel owners.
The action was taken by Atlantean Ltd, a fishing vessel firm owned by Dublin-based businessman Des Faherty. The Court of First Instance ruled in favour of 20 of the Irish vessels.
In doing so, the commission was overturning the commision’s decision in April 2003 to refuse the requests to increase the size of the Irish vessels. The court dismissed the cases of four owners and fishing companies: Thomas Faherty, Ocean Trawlers Ltd, Larry Murphy and O’Neill Fishing Co Ltd.

Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation chief executive Sean O’Donoghue said that his group would be looking for compensation on the Eu21 million in penalties levied on six of the vessel owners by the Government for the tonnage excess.