The Duke of Devonshire has initiated legal action to fend off demands from fishery authorities for the removal of a weir on the river Blackwater in Co Cork.
The Department of the Marine wrote to the Duke of Devonshire last summer requesting the removal of the weir at Clondulane between Fermoy and Lismore by the end of 2006 and asking that a timetable be provided for the work.
The department's request to remove the weir followed a report by engineers which said that the weir is hampering the movement of salmon upstream to spawning grounds in the upper reaches of the Blackwater.
The Duke of Devonshire owns Clondulane weir and fishing rights on a one and three-quarter mile length of river at nearby Careysville, where anglers pay on average €3,000 a week to stay at a luxurious guesthouse owned by the duke to avail of the salmon fishery.
However, the company which manages the Duke of Devonshire's commercial interests, Lismore Estates, has initiated proceedings in the High Court and is seeking a judicial review of the department's proposal to remove the weir.
The matter was first listed in the High Court in Dublin on December 19th last and it is due for mention again on January 23rd when it is expected that a date will be fixed for a full hearing of the case. The duke's agent, Michael Penruddock, confirmed to The Irish Times that Lismore Estates had initiated legal action over the department's proposal, but said he could not comment further because of the pending litigation.
However, last July when the proposal first came to light, Mr Penruddock told The Irish Times that salmon can get through the weir at all times and the proposal to remove it would destroy a safe haven of deep water where salmon rest and spawn.
The proposal to remove the weir has been backed by the Southern Regional Fisheries Board whose chief executive Brian Sheerin said that the board believes that redundant weirs should be removed as they obstruct salmon movement.
"It's our belief that the removal of redundant weirs from rivers is the optimum solution in terms of both fish migration and fish habitats - the fewer man-made obstructions there are on rivers to prevent salmon going upstream, the better," he said.