Ireland Socio-economic Profile


Ireland : IRL1
1.1 Overview

The area defined as Ireland IRL1 covers the whole country apart from Northern Ireland. In Ireland there were 1,244 registered fishing vessels in 1997 although there are approximately 2,250 active fishing vessels.  The registered Irish fleet has a broad distribution of vessel sizes and is not dominated by vessels of a particular class size.

The Irish inshore fishing fleet is defined as those vessels fishing within 12 miles of the coast and are less than 15m in length.  Approximately 70% of all registered vessels fall within this category.  

The majority of the vessels in the fleet were built in the 1960's and 1970's and the median age is almost 30 years old.

The value of landings in 1997 totalled 176,583,904 ECU (excluding oysters, clams and mussels).  The Irish fleet targets a variety of species including; cod, plaice, megrim, hake, mackerel , horse mackerel, whiting, herring and nephrops.  In recent years demersal and pelagic species have been equally important in value terms but in volume terms the bulk of the landings come from the pelagic sector.   The total volume of landing has increased from 225,000 tonnes in 1989 to 291,000 in 1997.  The composition of landings did not change substantially within this period.

Processing is dispersed throughout the coastal regions from Donegal in the North West to Clogherhead on the East coast.  The major concentration of processing is in Donegal particularly Killybegs. Over half the pelagic species processors are located in the border region.  According to BIM the Irish processing industries had a throughput of 145,000 tonnes in 1998 with a total value 284,942,209 ECU.  Ireland is a net exporter of fish products with exports predominately in mackerel, horse mackerel and salmon.

The Irish aquaculture industry has grown from a production of 5,815 tonnes  3,344,392 ECU in 1980 to 31,113 tonnes in 1997 worth 77,589,897 ECU.  Production of salmon has accounted for nearly all of this expansion. Rope mussel production has been steadily increasing  to 5,916 tonnes in 1997.  The production of gigas oyster has grown over the period and is now approaching 3,700 tonnes per annum.

1.2 Coastal Fishing Employment

The number of fishers employed in marine capture fishing totals  6,274   (5,494 FTEs).  The majority of these fishers are located on the West Coast of Ireland,  with 1,134 (FTE) fishers in Cork and Cork county.  The counties of Galway (910 FTE)  and Kerry (714 FTE)   and Donegal (920 FTE), also on the West coast have considerable numbers of people employed in fishing.  Over half of Ireland's fishers are classified as working the inshore fisheries (less than 12 miles from the coast)  on vessels less than 15 m in length (almost all are on polyvalent vessels).

1.3 Processing Employment

The processing sector employs 4,920 people, 57% of these workers are part time, in full time equivalents there are 3,261 FTEs.  The largest concentration of processing employment is in County Donegal  (32% of all FTEs) in the North West of Ireland, where over 1,000 people are involved in the processing sector. The rest of the processing employment is spread evenly throughout the coastal counties of Ireland

1.4 Marine Aquaculture Employment

The Irish aquaculture sector is considerable providing 2,198 persons employed.  This represents 1,092 FTEs.  The largest concentration of employment is along the West coast. Figures on a NUTS 3 level record  that the South West had 788 people employed in aquaculture, whilst there were 521 in the West and 497 in the Borders. Of the 2,198 total persons employed in aquaculture 1,642 are part time workers and only 556 are full time workers.

1.5 Inland Fishing Employment

There are approximately 150 fishers fishing for eels in inland waters.  In addition the sport/recreational fishing industry is of considerable size in Ireland, but there are no employment figures for this sector.