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Filmmaker Risteard Ó Domhnaill 'It's time for us to take ownership of our natural resources'

How many of us really know what is going on in our coastal communities, asks director of The Pipe, Risteard Ó Domhnaill.

WE VISIT THEM on our summer holidays. We like to see boats coming and going from piers and to eat seafood in local restaurants. We imagine what a great life the locals must have. But the reality for coastal communities is as far from the imagined maritime idyll as Newfoundland is from Kilmore Quay.

From the very start, the motivation for making ‘Atlantic’ has always been about giving people around the country an insight into what is going on off our shores. While filming a documentary on the Corrib Gas project in northwest Mayo, I began to realise how little I knew about the seas surrounding us, and the people whose livelihoods depend on it.

90% of our territorial area is underwater

Growing up in Tipperary, I came to know a lot about land, cattle, hurling and the value of property, but very little about the 90% of our territorial area that is underwater. It was only when I began to talk to fishermen, oil rig workers and former minister Justin Keating, did I begin to fully realise the sheer extent of our offshore territory and ocean resources.

There is a real passion for, and connection with, the sea among the communities dependent on these resources. They risk their lives every time they go to work because they know what it’s worth.

Most Irish people are, however, completely and genuinely ignorant of that worth. Travelling to Norway and Newfoundland was a real eye-opener, learning of the value and appreciation that our Atlantic neighbours put on their natural resources and coastal communities. In comparison, as a country we have turned our backs on the ocean.

Shattering negative connotations

In the past, the sea has generally been associated with poverty, emigration and invasion. When I was young, the only time “dacent” country people ate fish was on a Friday and that was as penance.

I think that attitude towards the sea and its negative connotations has pervaded down into how our government treats our ocean resources and those who make a living off our coasts. From handing over our fishing rights to Europe in 1973, to rescinding control of our oil and gas prospects to big business in 1987, our public representatives have always shown a lack of political will towards improving the livelihoods of our coastal communities.

Instead, the extraction of Ireland’s ocean resources is effectively being outsourced to the armada-sized fleets of Europe and to private oil and gas companies pushing to exploit our fossil fuel potential, often at terms more favourable for private enterprise than for the private citizen.

Teeming waters

LighthouseStorm2

What people don’t realise is that Ireland’s fish resource is unparalleled. It’s the richest in Europe. As the world’s largest super-trawlers swarm in our waters and the oil majors eye up potentially massive finds off our coasts, the management of those ocean resources is becoming an increasingly urgent question. Thanks to a whistle-blower, we see in the film that super-trawlers are dumping in one fortnight enough fish to keep Ireland’s 1,800 small inshore boats going for a year.

In addition, the activities of seismic vessels on the fragile fishing grounds raise similar concerns for the effects on the long-term sustainability of our fish stocks. With offshore drilling for oil in Irish waters set to re-commence in summer 2017, it is time for us, as a people, to become informed and to take ownership of decision-making regarding our natural resources.

Brexit and climate change

Brexit poses huge problems too because it has the potential to wreak havoc on the Common Fisheries Policy and especially on Ireland’s fishing interests.

As 50% of EU fishing grounds are in the UK, Brexit may force the EU fleets to focus even more intensely on our lucrative fishing waters, which are already under severe pressure. Our extremely limited capacity to police the thousands of EU vessels already in our waters does not auger well for the future.

StarofHope

Add to that the accelerating impacts of climate change, and we have some massive challenges on the horizon. Ireland needs to take responsibility for what happens in our own jurisdiction before the current free-for-all leaves us empty-handed and our coastal communities decimated.

After four years in the making, it is really timely to have ‘Atlantic’ now screening on the national broadcaster. My hope is that it will open the eyes of people, not just along the coasts, but all across the country as to what is happening in Ireland’s vast territorial seas.

For too long, we have ignored the massive potential of this huge expanse of ocean, but to have the opportunity now to bring this story right into people’s homes across Ireland is a dream come true.

Now we have the opportunity to step back and look at what is happening in our waters and decide as a country what we need to do to protect this delicate ecosystem and to allow our coastal communities to thrive sustainably. We cannot blame Europe, Britain or other foreign interests for the current situation.

As narrator of ‘Atlantic,’ Brendan Gleeson, said this week: “It’s about political conviction and intent. Europe promised to look after the margins. It’s up to our crowd to make them live up to it.”

Risteard Ó Domhnaill is the award winning director and producer of ‘Atlantic’ which airs on RTÉ One on Thursday December 8th at 10:15pm. For more information, to buy the DVD or to request a screening visit www.theatlanticstream.com.

Three people die every day due to the state of the Irish environment – study>

This Irish documentary about fishing and oil is making people angry>

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23 Comments
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    Mute briewee
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    Nov 18th 2011, 9:00 AM

    a doctor has to prescribe a these so they should be talking to doctors who over prescribe them. my doctor will not give one unless he feels its warrants it and with children he rather lets it run its course where possible. it is not the patients fault they feel sick and go to the doctors just to make sure it is ok, at the end of the check up the doctor decides what to prescribe not the patient

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    Mute InTrapWeTrust
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    Nov 18th 2011, 9:13 AM

    Fair point re doctors, but I know myself, a lot of people self diagnose and use anti-biotics they purchased abroad or got from friends which is obviously wrong and can really cause long term harm.

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    Mute Tom Mc Carthy
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    Nov 18th 2011, 9:30 AM

    ironically most don’t realise that if your illness is viral and you take antibiotics you actually lower your immunity further. I presume there is bad news on way from HSE, they have never taken this issue seriously but suddenly they need to look like they’re doing something?

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    Mute Sean Armstrong
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    Nov 18th 2011, 9:35 AM

    Nah it’s more of a global WHO thing. And the immunity thing… Not sure what you’re getting at there, maybe suppressing gut flora? Pretty unlikely on the antibiotics used by GPs for the amount of time that they are taken.

    More of an issue is people taking the full course of antibiotics. Take them all you silly people, we don’t say take for 5 days when 2 will do, it’s to ensure full eradication of the bug.

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    Mute Paula Nolan
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    Nov 18th 2011, 11:22 AM

    If I had read this 25 years ago, I might have been impressed at the HSE tackling the issue, and dictating best practice. I might have been impressed with a public information campaign. I’d have been impressed at a public information campaign being second in importance to a campaign to stop GPs giving antibiotics to people like they were lollipops. A quarter of a century later, I am far from impressed. Way too little, way too late. The waste of time and the waste of money involved by GPs prescribing unnecessary antibiotics pales into insignificance in the face of the incalculable loss of life, and loss of quality of life. For seven years they train, with the major help of our taxes, and then behave like sheer idiots in this regard. Over the decades, every time I hear a work colleague chime, “I’ve a bit of a cold so I’m going to the doc for some antibiotics” I get so angry. I know they’ll be sick again in two week’s time, because the antibiotics will mess with their immune system – their resistance to the person next to them on the bus coughing will be minimal to nought. We will never know how many people have died due to hospital acquired infection due to antibiotics being resistant to bacteria, due to antibiotic overuse and abuse. I know someone who chose not to have a surgery to reduce his chance of a cancer recurrence, because he’d witnessed so many people battling bacterial infections post surgery. On balance, he felt the risk of a recurrence was the lesser risk. I have to wonder ‘why now?’ with this unspeakably overdue statement from the HSE. Why not a quarter of a century ago? Is there a lucrative pharma deal languishing in the filing cabinet of a penthouse office suite? Or recently shredded? Are we getting Messages From Merkel that we have to act upon? Is there a good solid reason why insanity in this regard has prevailed for so long? Did someone in the HSE just take their reality check medication? Answers please.

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    Mute Saoilí
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    Nov 18th 2011, 9:55 AM

    The HSE has diagnosed the illness; people are taking too many antibiotics. But it has prescribed the wrong treatment: http://saoili.blogspot.com/2011/11/open-letter-to-dr-fidelma-fitzpatrick.html

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    Mute Paula Nolan
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    Nov 18th 2011, 10:07 AM

    Good letter. Personally I never go to a GP with a cold or flu unless I need a sick cert for work. I let it run its course. If it feels like it’s getting into other territories: strep throat, lung infection – then I’d go to GP.

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    Mute Sean
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    Nov 18th 2011, 11:04 AM

    Good article on this. People in this country do love their anti-biotics a bit too much…

    http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/17/antibiotic-superbugs-europe-idUSL5E7MH2A420111117

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    Mute Saffron Marriott
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    Nov 18th 2011, 1:52 PM

    I was in the UK over 20 years ago and I read a public information poster about doctors being incentivised not to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics. Why has it taken the HSE so long. Having spent the last 10 years working in childcare it depressed me to see how many children and staff are given antibiotics for viral illnesses. I can only think that doctors are doing this to justify the fees they charge. After all, if someone pays 45 euros for a doctors visit they don’t want to come away empty handed.

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    Mute Dark Stormnm
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    Nov 19th 2011, 10:58 PM

    I can only blame the gobshite Irish public for bacterial resistance to antibiotics and their overuse. I heard one lady proclaim that her doctor was a “rip-off” because he had diagnosed her throat infection as being viral, and had not prescribed antibiotics. She felt she had wasted 50 euro because she left his surgery without a prescription. Her attitude is not uncommon, and is commonly seen across Ireland with patients plaguing GP’s to prescribe antibiotics or harassing pharmacies for a “repeat” of some antibiotic they were prescribed many moons ago. All so “the kitchen sink can be thrown at the problem” and to “hit ” the infection, even if that infection is viral and they have been informed of this.

    But then again the Irish are complete gobshites in many ways from the IMF being here to voting FF in three times, to building housing estates without sewerage connected in the middle of nowhere, the contempt with which law and order is held, to the likes of Jackie Healy Rae being in the Dail or drunken Cowen singing off the back of lorries in Clara, etc.

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    Mute Oskar Fritsche
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    Nov 18th 2011, 12:21 PM

    So When are the HSE being disbanded the sooner the better.

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