Rather than buy out driftnet licences and compensate commercial fishermen for loss of earnings, the Government is presiding over the destruction of wild salmon stocks. It is a short-sighted approach that threatens our major rivers, undermines tourist earnings and generates bad international publicity. And it is being pursued by Minister of State Pat "the Cope" Gallagher, who is determined that drift netting should continue along the west coast despite scientific advice on catch quotas.
The behaviour of the Government in this long-running controversy over salmon conservation has been appalling. Two years ago, a firm of international economic consultants advised a rebalancing of wild salmon exploitation from commercial fisheries towards tourist angling, in order to preserve stocks and maximise the economic return. It was ignored. The company also proposed that commercial fishing be confined to inshore bays and estuaries and that catch limits be imposed on anglers where stocks were low. Nothing happened.
The Green Party launched a nationwide campaign in Dublin, entitled "Help Save Our Salmon", in which it advocated the conservation of salmon stocks on a "river catchment" basis and urged strict adherence to scientific advice. Only 900 salmon had come back to the Liffey last year, its marine spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan, said, which was less than a fifth of the numbers required for a healthy population. Other south and east coast rivers were equally affected. And he accused Fianna Fáil of favouring a 40 per cent increase in the catch recommended by its scientific advisers.
Drift netting is incompatible with conservation. That is an unfortunate, but unavoidable reality. Salmon stocks from most Irish rivers migrate down along the west coast from their feeding grounds off Iceland, before rounding the south coast and entering the Irish Sea. They are intercepted from Donegal onwards and killed indiscriminately, from rivers with healthy stocks and from those facing depletion. Ireland is the last country in Europe to permit this indiscriminate harvesting method. We already benefit from a buy-out of foreign driftnets to the North of us. But we are failing to conserve our own stocks. And we catch the few remaining French and Spanish salmon that pass along the west coast.
Conservation can only be effective on a river-by-river basis, with the health of salmon stocks dictating the catch quotas. But Mr Gallagher opposes a pre-election buy-out of drift net licences. And scientific advice on catch limits is likely to be ignored until 2007. It is a dreadful situation. And it must change.
