Anglers in Kilkenny have expressed dismay that the Office of Public Works has not yet found a solution to problems at Lacken Weir on the river Nore which are hampering the passage of migrating salmon.
Luke Boyle, a spokesman for the anglers, said yesterday that four months after the OPW launched a public consultation, "we are no further down the road".
The anglers fear that for a third successive year, salmon returning from the Atlantic to spawn may face an insurmountable obstacle on their journey upriver.
The weir, which was restructured during flood-relief works, is too high and a fish pass designed by the Department of the Marine has allegedly proved to be unsatisfactory.
The OPW established a review group in February to try to find a solution. A spokesman said it was in the "final phase" of deciding the best solution and that four options were still being considered. These include installing new fish passes, removing the weir altogether and constructing a new weir downriver from Lacken.
No estimates are yet available for the cost of sorting out the problem, but the overall cost of the flood-relief works in Kilkenny, originally estimated at €13 million, have to date cost more than €48 million.
Anglers claim they are being "fobbed off" and had hoped that work on their preferred solution - the building of a rock-ramp pass on the weir - would already have started. Now they fear that the "window of opportunity may be closing".
The Southern Regional Fisheries Board has also expressed concern that even if this solution is agreed, the work, which should ideally be carried out "by the end of August", may not be completed on time. CEO Brian Sheerin said that if the matter could not be resolved this summer, an emergency step would be to breach the weir to allow fish to pass upriver this winter and then do "a proper job" in summer 2007.
Constructing a rock-ramp pass would involve moving heavy machinery into the river and laying a trail of boulders - some weighing up to four tonnes - on a 20 metre-wide section of the weir sloping down to the river bed below. This would create a passage to enable salmon to get over the weir and provide a "more natural environment" incorporating resting-pools for the fish.
The anglers say that rock-ramp passes have been built successfully on rivers in Europe and the US, but it is believed that such a project would be a first for the OPW. The only known rock-ramp pass built in Ireland to date, but on a much smaller scale, is believed to be that on the Kanturk river in Co Cork which was built by local people.
