A “MONSTER” trawler was detained off the south west coast of Ireland for alleged EU fishing offences and a man has been arrested.
The European Fisheries Control Agency patrol vessel Ocean Protector detained the German-registered Helen Mary, a factory ship which can process its catch onboard.
She was escorted to Cork Harbour and is now laid up at Tivoli Docks where she is being searched.
The Helen Mary is almost 117m long and almost 18m wide.
It is registered at the port of Rostock in Germany.
The trawler, which has a crew of 50 and a storage capacity for a massive 7,000 tonnes of fish, was fishing 65 nautical miles off Mizen Head.
In 2019, the same ship was detained in Scotland on suspected fishery offences.
She has been listed by Greenpeace as one of 20 “monster trawlers” that the organisation claims is responsible for overfishing in the Atlantic.
The following year Greenpeace activists boarded and stopped the super trawler from fishing in a protected area east of Scotland.
The Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority in Ireland said that on Sunday, officers on board a European Fisheries Control Agency patrol boat detected suspected infringements of European fisheries legislation that involved a sea-fishing vessel in the Irish Exclusive Economic Zone.
The operation was conducted by EFCA, which is a European Union agency that protects and promotes the EU Common Fisheries Policy, under a Joint Deployment Plan.
In a statement the agency said: “The Joint Deployment Plans framework provides the legal basis where the relationships of joint deployment of inspections assets/inspectors are set and are applicable to all assets of the concerned Member States and EFCA.
SHIP ESCORTED
“When operating in EU waters, the EFCA inspectors always have Union Inspectors from Member States onboard and they are the leading inspectors.
“The vessel has been directed to Cork port.”
The EFCA patrol boat, the Ocean Protector, boarded the Helen Mary off the southwest coast on Sunday.
It was escorted to the deepwater Tivoli dock near Cork City, where it has been detained today.
Gardai said they received a report of alleged fishery breaches in the Port of Cork, Co Cork this morning.
They stated: “A man in his 40s has been arrested and conveyed to a Garda station in County Cork and is being detained under the provisions of the Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006.
“The investigation is ongoing.”
