Fish have been dominating the news this week with good news for salmon countered by a stark warning that the world’s fishing stock will be exhausted by 2050 if current levels of fishing continues.

Following a complaint to the European Commission, the Irish government acted to ban drift-net fishing off the country’s coast which was seriously depleting European salmon rivers, not least in Britain – a good example of how fishing policy cannot be a purely national matter.

Anyone who saw the BBC’s excellent documentary Trawlermen earlier in the year can empathise with the fisherman who do an incredibly hard job for increasingly little reward. Without fish there will be no fishing industry. Like it or not, strict limits on fishing, agreed and applied by all, are essential to the survival of the industry.

Each year the Commission proposes a quota for the Common Fishing Policy and almost without fail the governments of Member States ignore the scientific advice to stem criticism from back home and agree on more lax quotas.

By trying to keep everyone happy in the short term we are failing to safeguard fish stocks for the future. But without fish there will be no fishing industry.