MEP MARIA WALSH has warned that a proposal to cut the EU’s mackerel quota by 70% would “threaten the livelihoods of people across rural Ireland”.

The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) had recommended a 70% reduction in the EU’s mackerel quota next year. 

ICES is an organisation that provides scientific advice on marine ecosystems and its advice is requested by bodies including the European Commission.

Walsh added that ICES’s “scientific advice is used by the EU to set fishing quotas”.

In its latest submission, ICES has advised a 70% reduction in the EU’s mackerel quota for 2026 due to the decline in the stock size and a reduction in the numbers of stock capable of reproducing.

Walsh has written to the European Commission to “demand” that Ireland’s fishing quotas are not cut following this advice publication.

She is a member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee and has submitted a written question to the European Commission seeking a “commitment to protect Ireland’s fishing sector”.

Walsh will also raise the issue in the European Parliament later today.

Speaking today, Walsh said that ICES’s recommendation of a 70% reduction in mackerel quotas “would prove devastating for Ireland’s fishing sector”.

She noted that Ireland’s mackerel quota has already dropped from over 75,000 tonnes in 2020 to just 10,800 tonnes projected in 2026. 

Walsh said she has “called on the Commission to deliver fair quotas and a long-term plan for the sector”.

She has also asked what measures of financial assistance will be made available to fishers and coastal communities “facing severe economic impacts due to quota reductions”. 

“A cut of 70% could cost us €66 million, and threatens the livelihoods of people across rural Ireland,” warned Walsh.

She added that mackerel is worth €94 million in exports and “supports thousands of hardworking families in our coastal communities”. 

Walsh further remarked that Irish fishing communities are “bearing the cost of the Commission’s failure to confront non-EU countries that have flouted scientific advice for years”.

“If we don’t act, we risk losing an industry and way of life that has sustained generations.

“We must protect both our natural resources and the livelihoods of our people.”

‘Could devastate coastal economies’

The Irish Fish Producers Organisation (IFPO) has also urged stronger action from the EU “against non-EU states that continue flagrant overfishing of shared stocks, which has created this crisis in fish stocks”.

The IFPO said it expects ICES’s recommendations will be followed through in 2026.

It said that reduction in the mackerel quota will be a “triple blow that could wipe out Ireland’s offshore fleet and devastate coastal economies”.

“Sustainability is vital,” said IFPO chief executive Aodh O’Donnell, “but the EU’s failure to stop reckless overfishing by Norway, Iceland and the Faroes has led directly to this collapse.”

He had called on the Irish Government to “push the EU to apply trade and access sanctions against non-EU states that continue to overfish and threaten shared fish stocks”.

“Market access for these rogue states should be conditional on compliance with sustainability rules,” he added.

O’Donnell said a 70% quota reduction would be a direct loss of around €72 million.

“These cuts will destroy our most valuable fisheries and cripple the towns that depend on them, unless the EU acts decisively,” said O’Donnell.

“If Brussels fails to stand up for fair, science-based management, Ireland’s pelagic industry could disappear within a year,” he added.

The IFPO also criticised the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy which gives Ireland “less than 6% of EU quotas despite holding 12% of EU waters”.

The IFPO has called on the Irish government to provide “short-term financial support schemes” and for the EU to “deny fishing access to non-EU fleets that refuse to adhere to agreed quota-sharing arrangements”.

It has also called for the EU to reopen scientific review of pelagic stocks in 2026 if “new survey data warrants upward revisions”.