The ESB has rejected claims by anglers that it has stopped employing security staff for salmon protection on the River Shannon.
The Shannon, Mulcair and District Anglers' Association in Co Limerick claims that the ESB is more interested in producing hatchery-reared salmon fry and smolts rather than protecting the natural stocks of wild salmon.
The anglers' spokesman, Mr Andy McCallion, said: "I find it incredible that the ESB could expose the wild salmon stock when they were at their most vulnerable on the spawning beds."
The association said the anglers were further incensed when the ESB refused to appoint an anglers' representative to the Shannon management advisory group.
Denying the anglers' allegations, the ESB fisheries manager, Mr Gerry Gough, said that, following the development of an ESB hatchery programme and a structured management approach to the Shannon catchment, there had been a tenfold increase in the return of wild and hatchery salmon to the Shannon.
He said that staff from a private security firm had augmented ESB protection wardens and would continue to do so for the immediate future.
He explained that anglers were excluded from the ESB advisory body because the Shannon Salmon Management Programme dealt with the total river and there was a lack of unanimity among the anglers.
"An attempt to found a federation of Limerick anglers in 1997 did not succeed, and we in the ESB wished this had succeeded, as one umbrella group would aid the successful decision-making process along the Shannon," he added.