Catch Of The Day

16 kilometres from Waterford City on the A684 and only 75 minutes driving from the Gateway Ferry Port at Rosslare,  Dunmore East is a busy fishing harbour . It is famous for holding the world record holder for the largest tuna caught on a rod and a on  a more serious note it is also known as the town with the first official woman crew member on the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) Lifeboat.

Besides these achievements this is also the home of “ le Beau Matin`s“ Skipper Aaron Johns , his daughter Ella his crew John Phillips and Earl Keogh alongside Estonian Born Indrek Lanus and Mexican cook Jorge Llamas . Le Beau Matin is a great boat and while the business of fishing is a difficult one it does bring some satisfaction and frustration. On the latter Aaron Johns never envisaged to have his daughter being part of the crew but as a Graduate she has been struggling to find a job matching her aspirations and decided that a hard job is better than no job at all this is now her fourth trip at sea with her dad. Jorge on the other hand came to Ireland 8 years ago and joined Aaron when no Irish would apply for the busy role of fisherman and Cook.

Aaron keeps slagging Jorge that he is a better cook than fisherman however he has been very loyal to Aaron , Indrek joined the crew 2 years after Jorge , he was a fisherman in the Baltics before moving to the South East of Ireland and he also has a good command of Swedish.

The Beau Matin has left Dunmore East @ 4.00 AM this morning and is en route to its catchment area , there was plenty of white fish the last time around  they went there and Aaron even managed to make a profit on the last trip. While he hopes to reiterate the same financial experience the crew is working on making sure everything is ready  for a fruitful  day at sea. Aaron is steering the boat towards the desired fishing area and in those cruising quiet moments  he is always taking the opportunity switch on the radio. In the background his preferred show called “ The Catch of Day“ presented by Tim Byrne is on and they are having a great discussion on a new policy introduced by Minister of Justice  Mr Shatter, the commission he has mandated wants to introduce a proposal that  would significantly widen the pool of potential jurors and seek to address long-standing concerns about jury-tampering and misconduct, including internet research, by jurors.

The report, due to be published today, calls for a radical widening of eligibility criteria. It suggests every adult citizen of the United Kingdom who is registered to vote in Dáil elections should be qualified to sit on a jury here, as should every non-Irish citizen who is registered to vote in local elections and has been resident in the State for at least five years. This would add about 200,000 people to the pool.

This is great thinks Aaron he could already picture Indrek and Jorge wearing smart suits and nice perfume and  being on their best behaviour on their way to the Waterford court of Justice . He also thinks about his dad this would have been really hard to implement for his generation , this is a very brave and lucid proposition indeed.

The more a  society is widening the safety nets the least  it is exposed to stormy conditions. Aaron is in a pensive mood now this needs really  to be called out and  recognized , the society need to salute Alan Shatter and the commission who by making this proposition are giving a very strong signal and acknowledgment this could even make figure of a symbol to a certain extent, a few years back this would have been a catch 22 situation it would have been…….

UNSINKABLE

Previously posted on a different platform in 2013