Strategy for the Irish Inshore Fishery Sector 2018-2023 – Your Sector Needs Your Views!

It is nearly 20 years since the publication of the report ‘Ireland’s Inshore Fisheries Sector – Review and Recommendations’. A very different approach has been adopted in the development of today’s strategy, the engagement and participation of the inshore sector has been paramount from the beginning, allowing the sector to take ownership of the process and the final product.  The National Inshore Fisheries Forum (NIFF) has been working with Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, BIM, the Marine Institute and the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) to develop a Strategy for the Irish Inshore Fisheries Sector for the remainder of the current EMFF Operational Programme 2018-2023.  Industry input has been crucial throughout the process of development, through the RIFF members in the initial consultation in December 2017 and the nearly 50 RIFF Members that attended the Strategy development workshop in February 2018 and the 5 NIFF members on the Steering Group. Further work by the Steering Group in March and April has led to the development of an Inshore Strategy Consultation Document.

The consultation document identifies issues affecting the sector, sets out a vision and strategic direction for the inshore sector until 2023 and identifies key objectives. Exactly how this vision and the objectives are to be achieved is deliberately not set out in the document and this is where the consultation process is looking to tap into the inshore sectors knowledge and experience to come up with realistic and practical ideas for actions that will bring the strategy to fruition. This can be done through the structured online consultation which can be found here or on http://inshoreforums.ie/.

If you want to make the most of this consultation please read the consultation document thoroughly before using the consultation tool, the document itself might look long but most of it is just the questions you will be asked by the online consultation. The vision, issues and objectives that you need to think about are quite short.  Having read through the document you will find the consultation questions very straightforward. If you are stuck for time the Smart Survey allows you to save your input by putting in your email address and a password of your choice so you can return to it later when it’s more convenient. There’s plenty of time to mull things over as the consultation doesn’t close until 9:00am on the 10th of September 2018.

The strategy will be completed in September this year, taking into account the responses received.

L to R:  Jim O’Toole, CEO BIM; Mr. Michael Creed TD, Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Trudy McIntyre and Kieran Calnan, Chairman, BIM.