A fishing vessel from Derry was prevented from unloading its catch in a Donegal port earlier this week.
The McAvenue brothers, Darrin and Derek, have been fishing off the north and northwest coast for almost 20 years.
Their vessel is registered in Coleraine, Co Derry.
RTE report that they claim that as they attempted to land their catch in Greencastle, Co Donegal, earlier this week they were prevented from doing so by Irish Fisheries personnel.
The brothers are frustrated by the situation and say “we were under the impression there would be no hard border and instead there would be a frictionless border on the island of Ireland. But what we experienced was a hard border”.
They also say the officials were not stopping them from coming ashore in Greencastle but they were stopping their boat, which makes their work impossible.
According to Alan McCulla from the Anglo-North Irish Fish Producers Organisation in Kilkeel, there are only two designated ports in the Republic of Ireland where non-Irish registered boats can bring their fish ashore – Killybegs in Co Donegal and Castletownbere in Co Cork.
For full story see https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0110/1188766-fishing-port/
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