North West faces ‘one of worst tourist seasons’

If current trends continue, the North West could be heading for one of its worst tourist seasons in years, with a decline of up to 20% in visitor numbers being witnessed across the region. So reports Anita Guidera in yesterday’s Irish Independent.
Already, the poor season has set alarm bells ringing and prompted the industry to call for a three-year action plan, with the main aim of retrieving the lost overseas trade.
While the picture for the remainder of August and September looks more optimistic, bed and breakfasts are reporting a disastrous season.
In addition, most hotels in counties Sligo, Leitrim, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan confirm a drop in numbers on last year.
Bad weather, smoking restrictions, the 9pm ban on young people in bars, the emergence of eastern Europe as a cheap holiday destination and even the footballing success of Northern Irish counties are among the factors being blamed for the decline in visitors to the region.
The decline in tourism will be one of the areas addressed in a three year strategic plan, which will be set in motion at next month’s AGM of the board of North West Tourism.
Members are expected to support the drawing up of the plan for 2004 to 2006, which will include up to £5m in additional funding, in a bid to increase the numbers of US and British visitors into the region by a massive 25%.
Currently the region is getting just 6% of the total number of overseas visitors coming to the Republic.
North West Tourism will also be seeking additional marketing money from Failte Ireland for the border area, to match what the counties on the Northern side of the border are receiving.

The Times talked to tourism sector operators to find out whether the downturn is being felt locally.
Jim White commented on how lucky he was in Donegal Town with his two hotels. The Abbey and Central are holding their own “Definitely the same volume of tourists is not around – along the west coast we are down 25%. Ireland hasn’t the weather, so we need to offer value for money and that is what we are doing - three nights B&B mid-week for €109 euro and two nights at the weekend for the same.”
Rosaleen O’Rourke of the Four Masters Bookshop on the Diamond says it is definitely quieter than last summer. “Ireland’s reputation as an expensive destination is harming us. There are less Americans and Northern Ireland visitors, but the continental market is holding up.”
Anne Temple of the Railway Heritage Centre says they have had a quiet season with tourist numbers down by 25%. She blamed the weather and the euro for the drop.
Tony McDermott of the Mill Park Hotel is happy with business locally compared to numbers down the country. “We are filling our rooms most nights and, considering that the hotel has gone from 43 to 115 bedrooms, we are very happy. Definitely the ‘off the street business’ is down, but I am satisfied with my figures. Our Café Bar’ is proving a great success, especially with the covered in area outside to accommodate the smokers. Our wedding business has increased, and 2005/2006 is looking good. Most of the apartments are sold and I hope to have them completed by the end of February.” Tony commented.
Julian Ensor , Manager of Magee & Co. says business is slightly up on 2003 but admits that last year was not exactly ‘on fire’ either. “There is definitely a drop in the American and European Market but we have seen an increase in the local and northern customer. We are working closely with the Donegal Town hotels, with special offers to guests and we have re-launched our ladies fashion department to attract the local and younger customer.”

Pictured: Rosaleen O’Rourke and Patricia Cleary of the Four Masters Bookshop

NWR to appeal to supreme court

North West Radio last week announced it is to mount a Supreme Court appeal against a recent ruling of the High Court that had refused the station a judicial review of a decision by the BCI not to renew its licence. In doing so, the board of NWR acknowledged that the Supreme Court appeal is the last possible legal avenue open to it.
The station is due to go off air at the end of September, with the successful applicant, Ocean FM, to start broadcasting on October 1st. However, unless the Supreme Court case is held before then, the hand-over may be delayed and the radio audience of Sligo, North Leitrim and South Donegal could be left with no local station on air.

RNLI fundraising trip on the Waterbus

The catering crew: Kathleen Harron, Alice Kelly, Neilly O’Donnell, Enda Mulligan and Veronica McGroary

Frosses Notes
by Colm Kelly

Waterstreet Bridge

Waterstreet Bridge will be open to traffic at the end of August. This project has run well over budget. The original costing was €600,000 but now another €150,000 is needed to finish the construction, bringing the final figure to €750,000.

Extension at Begleys

John Begley is extending his existing pharmacy on the Diamond adding extra storage and office space. There will be three apartments for letting, a private car park and a back entrance for pedestrians. John hopes the first phase – the shop extension will be finished by Halloween.

Over-zealous monitoring, expensive berthage, shortage of electrical power and restricted landing times, all make for an uneven playing field - and many disillusioned operators in ‘Irelands Premier Fishing Port’
Killybegs - a town in crisis?

Whither Killybegs?
Our premier fishing port of Killybegs has lately been much in the news, what with celebrating the opening of its new pier, the 25th anniversary of the KFO, and its place to the forefront of hosting maritime exhibitions, copperfastened by the successful presentation of ‘Fish Ireland’.
But all is not well at the port of Killybegs!
To understand why, let us firstly look at the types of fishing that operate in the seafaring town and what happens to the catches.

Types of Fishing
White/demersal – This is fishing on the bottom of the ocean, mainly for cod, sole, whiting etc.
Pelagic – Working in pairs, boats catch shoaling fish in mid-water, mainly mackerel, herring and horse-mackerel.
Killybegs has nowadays very little white fishing; all the large boats in the port are pelagic or mid-water.
Herring fishing is locally based, ranging from the Sligo/Mayo coast to Antrim. It takes place from October - December and sometimes also in January/February. European end-producers buy this fish, either filleted or gutted.
Horse-mackerel is also locally based, generally reaching 15/16,000 tonnes between September and November, mostly exported to Japan. Also, a larger lower-fat species is fished in late December/early January for Egypt and West Africa.
However the most lucrative species for boats and factories is mackerel.
This shoal of fish leaves the Arctic Circle in August/September, journeying to the Bay of Biscay to spawn in March. It is fished by Norway, Scotland, Holland and Ireland, as it moves south. Some Killybegs boats trawl the fish between Norway and Scotland and may land the catch in either of these countries in November/December. From January to March this year, while the fish were between Scotland and Ireland, some did unload in the home port.

How the Catch is Divided
Norway and the EEC meet each year in December to decide the state of the fishery. They are advised by ICES (a scientific group that studies the various species) about what quantity should be fished to allow for maintenance of the fishery. ICES know there is over-fishing so it will likely allow for this when making a recommendation to TAC (total allowable catch).
The Brussels meeting in December sets the quotas based on this recommendation and these are then divided between the EEC fishing nations and Norway, on a traditional catch basis.
In the case of Ireland, this quota is divided among the boats in the fleet depending on tonnage – it is further split between the Spring and Autumn fishery, i.e. 45% Jan/Feb/March; 55% October/November/December.
The Departments of the Marine in the various countries monitor the catches. When a boat arrives in any port, it must present a log sheet, which, among other things, states the quantity of fish on board. The log sheet will eventually be returned to the country of origin of the boat.
Each country differs in the diligence with which it applies monitoring. Norway claims to have the best system, several people having been jailed for serious breaches with landings.
Nevertheless many believe that the Norweigans keep shouting about the Irish to divert attention from themselves as nobody believes they are clean either.
The Dutch freeze the fish on board and land everywhere – often directly to transport ships at sea – monitoring is practically nil and the alleged dumping of small fish over the side has never been investigated.
Up till recently, Scotland, much as ourselves, took the fish to factories, initially in 800kg bins but nowadays mostly in tankers. Inspection in that country is regarded as more flexible and sensibly monitored.
Last December, the EEC decided that the monitoring must be done by weighing, and that is the cause of present problems.

Over-zealous officialdom
The Irish noted the decision and implemented it to the fullest. As and from February 1st, everything was weighed. Boats must accurately forecast to within 7% what they have on board – there is only a 2% water tolerance in weighing the fish ex- the ships.
With reportedly a much larger tolerance in Scotland, it is a no-contest. Ships are by-passing the Irish landing destinations and transporting their fish to ports like Peterhead on the east coast of Scotland, over 40 hours away.
This is having a disastrous repercussion on Killybegs and its environs, affecting jobs directly on boats, pier, processing factories and back-up services. At least three factories have already closed and many others are in jeopardy.
A state-of-the-art new pier, complemented by high-tech communications and navigational facilities, is now in place in the port. But will it be utilised - or is it a ‘white elephant’?
The port of Killybegs is almost totally geared towards fishing and ancilliary industries. It is the proverbial ‘all eggs in one basket’ syndrome - a huge economic investment delivered into one sector. But under the present restrictive EU legislation - is it also a failed one?
To answer this and other questions and ascertain just how serious the crisis is, Donegal Times talked to some of the main players in the West Donegal fishing port.

“100% monitoring and it
doesn’t happen anywhere
else in the world”
Mick O’Donnell, of Island Seafoods, estimates that 30% of the industry in Killybegs and surrounding areas has closed down in the last two years, and that between 80 and 100 full-time jobs and 150-200 part-time, have been lost this year alone. He said that people who have been operational in the town for the last 25-30 years agree that the situation has never been as bad as in the last couple of years.
Jim Bowden, West Coast Fish Processing Ltd, feels that Killybegs’s future as a fishing port is ‘very uncertain, because the playing field is so uneven between Killybegs and other Irish ports, let alone between Killybegs and Scotland’. He believes that Killybegs is being singled out from other Irish ports for over-zealous monitoring, probably due to jealousy in other quarters over the town’s success. He said that ‘another year or two of this uneven monitoring and Killybegs will be finished as a shore operation’ (though boats would continue to fish). Jim believes that department officials won’t address the problem. He estimates that of the some thirty fishery officers employed as monitors throughout the whole country, over half of these are stationed in Killybegs - even more in high season.
His criticism of the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Dermot Ahern, and his department’s ‘excessively literal and legalistic’ interpretation of the monitoring scheme, was echoed by Mick O’Donnell who said the minister was ‘nothing short of a disgrace’; and had ‘no interest in fishing, only in communications’.
More criticism for the minister and his department’s handling of the situation was voiced by the fish-sales agent, Eamonn O’Donnell, “There is 100% monitoring and it doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world”, and by John Boyle of Albatross Distributors, who said that the impression around Killybegs is of the Department of the Marine trying to dissuade as many people as possible from fishing. Indeed, according to Mick O’Donnell, the previous incumbent of the minister’s office, Frank Fahey, said 4 years ago that smaller companies would just have to get out of the industry, and leave it to the large operators, if they couldn’t keep themselves afloat. Mick feels the department is just as unconcerned today.

Overtime restrictions
The minister’s decision in February to stop paying its fisheries officers overtime has severly jeopardised many more jobs. The extraction of herring roe is one of the most labour-intensive, best-employing, activities in the town (it takes twenty workers eight hours to extract one ton of the roe). However, since February, boats that go out on a Saturday evening, which would normally return on a Sunday night, say to Rathmullan, with their herring and horse-mackerel catches, cannot now land until Monday morning, as a fishery officer needs to be on hand to supervise the weighing. This means that the fish isn’t in the factory for processing until Tuesday morning, by which time the herring roe is no longer sufficiently fresh for its Japanese buyers, whose customers are the main market for this delicacy. Such a move indicates to local businesses just how little the minister’s department is willing to understand the fishing industry.

Expensive Berths
The expense of stationing a boat at the new pier is adding to Killybegs’ present difficulties. Eugene McBrearty of KER Services, which provides engineering expertise to the industry, explained that at the moment it costs between €800 and €1000 a week to dock in Killybegs, against €200 in Denmark, which includes shore power there. Aggravating this situation is the shortage of actual power at the Killybegs pier, where a boat requiring 100kw can only get 15kw. He said that eight and maybe as many as twelve Irish boats have been tied up in Denmark all summer because it’s cheaper there, and that businesses like his are feeling a big downturn, as boats just aren’t landing between September and March - he mentioned a big fleet of Norwegian long-liners that used to come into Killybegs between October and February, spending a lot of money in the town - these haven’t come in the last 3 years. At present, he feels ‘It is probably easier to get drugs into Killybegs than mackerel’.
Though KER is attempting to cope with these difficult times by diversifying into waste-water management, Eugene questions just how flexible the town as a whole can be? If the proposed maritime interpretative centre and water-park that are currently a possibility for either Bundoran, Buncrana or Killybegs, could be brought to the town, he agrees this would certainly be a welcome boost, but considers that Killybegs’ natural strength is as a fishing port and this should be how the town continues to operate.
Martin Howley, Chairman, Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation, told Donegal Times “The situations is ridiculous in that the Irish government has accepted a regulation on the weighing and landing of pelagic fish without any consideration of how they were going to implement it. When they ran into problems with the implementation they then took the decision to restrict landing times. What they have now done will have only one result - and that is to make everybody illegal as the control regulations that are in place are unworkable and will result in the entire fleet landing outside the country. The knock-on effect is a disaster for Killybegs and indeed the whole of South Donegal. If we thought we’ve seen job losses up till now, if this new regulation is enforced, then it’s the beginning of the end.”
Martin continued “The politicians must realise that something has got to be done before we kill off an industry that has brought employment and prosperity to large areas of Donegal. If we lose the processing and catching we will never again be able to get it back, and I feel that any minister must realise that in ten years time the Dutch, Danes and Germans will be still fishing away off the Irish coast while all we will have is memories of the industry.
The KFO is calling for separate departments and a minister who understands the need of the industries and not just somebody who is a stooge for the EU Commission.”

Equal monitoring
All players agree that monitoring is necessary and desirable, but it has to be implemented equally across Europe. At the moment, Scotland hasn’t even decided how it’s going to implement the agreement. To add insult to injury, it was observed to Donegal Times that Spanish and French boats can dock in Killybegs anytime they like and nobody boards their boats...
As for Dermot Ahern - all spoken to are praying that Bertie’s September reshuffle will see a new face take over in the Department of the Marine.