The Nephrops fishery is the second most important fishery to Ireland after mackerel. Ireland has 37% of the Nephrops quota in ICES Area VII and this is worth approximately €40 million per annum to the Irish economy.
All Nephrops stocks are surveyed at sea via Under Water TV surveys on board the Celtic Voyager and this survey programme is complimented on land by a comprehensive sampling programme in cooperation with fishermen and skippers. Samples of unsorted catch and discards are brought ashore by individual vessels and are used to calculate the average weight of individual Nephrops and the proportion of discards in numbers