Up to six workers are expected to lose their jobs with one of the State's biggest fishery protection boards because of a shortfall in funding.
The South-Western Regional Fisheries Board oversees an area extending from Kerry Head to Ballycotton in Co Cork, a coastline distance of over 1,000km, as well as all river catchments and lakes. The region contains many of Ireland's main game and coarse fisheries along with half of the State's leisure charter boats.
Most of those expected to lose their jobs have been on long-term contracts with the board, according to Mr Aidan Barry, chief executive of the board, the staff of which is to be reduced to a core of about 32.
Mr Barry explained that the board had to find savings of €172,000.
The shortfall in central government funding was in the region of €300,000, and an increase in salmon angling licence fees, announced before Christmas, would only bring in an extra €50,000.
Those facing job losses include two of the four administration staff in the board's headquarters in Macroom, Co Cork.
A fisheries protection officer who has been with the board on annual contract for 12 years is also to lose his job in Cork city. Mr John Harte, a board member who represents the staff, said that the loss of frontline jobs was particularly worrying. There had been a problem with poaching in the Cork city area, and fisheries officers had been seriously assaulted.
Other fisheries officers are to have their seasons of employment shortened in an attempt to save money.
West Cork and the Lough Leane catchment management system in Killarney will also be affected by the cuts.
The board was already under-staffed, and new systems, such as tagging and catchment management, had been introduced without any extra resources, Mr Harte said.
Negotiations between the board and SIPTU were taking place yesterday on the proposals to cut staff.
Meanwhile, only a limited number of angling licences are available for the salmon fishing season, which opens in much of Kerry today. This is because of the late announcement - on the day before Christmas Eve - of the new licence fees, which delayed printing of the licences.
Mr Barry said the board had a supply of provisional licences and it was hoping to have the permanent licences by next Monday.
Anglers, some of whom had threatened to boycott the licences, have revised their position following a meeting with Mr John Browne, Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. They had complained about not being consulted.
"We are not happy with the annual bag limit of 20 salmon and/or sea trout. We are also calling for the extra monies raised to be put into buying out the drift-net sector," said Mr John Buckley, chairman of the Killarney Valley Anglers' Federation.