{"id":465872,"date":"2026-05-25T07:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/465872\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T07:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T07:40:09","slug":"everyone-thinks-were-nuts-allowing-seas-to-be-raided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/465872\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Everyone thinks we\u2019re nuts allowing seas to be raided\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the country\u2019s leading fishmongers believes \u201ceveryone in Europe thinks we\u2019re nuts\u201d for allowing our waters to be plundered by foreign trawlers while Irish fishermen are restricted in what they can catch, writes Pat Flanagan.<\/p>\n

Stefan Griesbach, owner of Gannet Fishmongers<\/a>, said it is incredible that we, as an island nation, import 80% of our fish.<\/p>\n

The Parisian-born master fishmonger, who set up his business in 2004, also revealed he will not allow his teenage son to take over as the fish will soon not be there.<\/p>\n

The fishmonger in Galway, which carries the widest range of fish and seafood in the country, said many problems afflicting the industry are down to Irish people\u2019s conservative tastes when it comes to fish, with many refusing to eat anything but cod and hake.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Irish fishing industry is in massive trouble from when I started 20 years ago,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest problem was not to buy too much fish, now we\u2019re struggling to find what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Griesbach used to sell wholesale to restaurants but switched to retail-only eight years ago as it was \u201cgetting harder to get fish\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe stuck to Irish fish which are getting harder to get,\u201d he told RT\u00c9<\/a>\u2019s CountryWide.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is 80% is imported, be it sea bass, salmon or cod.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cWe export our best fish because we get better prices and we cannot sell them in Ireland because the customers are a little bit conservative,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople have some expectations… if they want cod or hake and if there\u2019s no local cod or hake. You might have hake coming all the way from Namibia.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine flying silver hake from Namibia to Spain and it comes by freight to Ireland. It\u2019s insane and then people in Namibia can\u2019t purchase those fish because we\u2019re putting pressure on the price.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy son who is now 17 and working with us will not be taking over the business. I said to him to look for something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fish will not be there. We are at the end of the line.\u201d<\/p>\n

While stocks of some species in Irish waters are dangerously low, there are plenty of bluefin tuna \u2013 but Ireland does not have a quota to catch a single fish.<\/p>\n

Mr Griesbach added: \u201cIronically, Irish waters are full of bluefin tuna, but Ireland does not have a bluefin tuna quota because we never asked for one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe UK looked for one when it was part of the EU and now they have a 50-tonne bluefin tuna quota and a burgeoning bluefin tuna fishery. We\u2019re looking at them from Ireland and [can] see them jumping in the water and all the tuna we eat in Ireland is coming from the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cJapanese boats are fishing off Ireland, they\u2019re 80 km out and we can\u2019t get fish that are swimming in our own water. Everybody in Europe thinks we\u2019re nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

In recent months, fishing representatives have said the loss of one third of Ireland\u2019s national fish quota in 2026 means they are facing their toughest year ever.<\/p>\n

Irish MEP Cynthia N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa and industry leaders are demanding urgent reform to the EU\u2019s CFP, citing quota imbalances and coastal dependence.<\/p>\n

\"nuts \"Irish MEP Cynthia N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa and industry leaders are demanding urgent reform to the EU\u2019s CFP, citing quota imbalances and coastal dependence. Photo: Leah Farrell\/\u00a9 RollingNews.ie<\/p>\n

Ms N\u00ed Mhurch\u00fa claimed the industry could collapse unless quotas are restored.<\/p>\n

Last year EU quota cuts that slashed 57,000 tonnes off the Irish catch threatened coastal communities with up to \u20ac200m in annual losses and thousands of job losses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the country\u2019s leading fishmongers believes \u201ceveryone in Europe thinks we\u2019re nuts\u201d for allowing our waters to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-465872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}