NEW legislation on fish and shell fish farming which aims to set up a licensing appeals mechanism similar to An Bord Pleanala is due to be signed into law within the next few days.
The legislation reached report stage finally last week, having been steered through the Oireachtas by the Minister of State for the Marine Mr Eamon Gilmore, despite opposition from angling groups. Such was the controversy over it in its early stages that 16 organisations took out advertisements in local newspapers expressing opposition.
"Fish farms on every lake, river, estuary and bay in Ireland" and "it effectively privatises the foreshore", were some of the claims made about the Aquaculture Bill in the advertisements.
The claims seriously misrepresented, misunderstood and missed the whole point of the Bill, the Minister of State said in response, when he dismissed some of them as "nonsense". Some 12 of the 16 organisations sponsoring the advertisements had made no submission to him prior to this, he said.
Two TDs representing Galway West, which has a concentration of fish farming, were active in securing amendments to the legislation during its committee stage over the last few months. The Progressive Democrat TD, Mr Bobby Molloy, and the Fianna Fail TD, Mr Eamon O Cuiv, took a line by line interest in the legislation. As a result, the quorum for the seven strong appeals board has been modified, while application regulations will apply to trial, as well as permanent, licences.
Existing legislation on fish farming dated back 17 years, and everyone agreed that it required a major overhaul. It failed to reflect new thinking on environmental issues, as well as developments within the aquaculture sector.
"Far from encouraging unbridled development, the new Bill sets stringent standards," the Minister of State has said. The new independent appeals procedure for licences is modelled closely on An Bord Pleanala and provides for "an open and transparent procedure with full consultation", he added.
The legislation will not "legalise, at a stroke, all existing and illegal fish farms", as objectors have claimed, Mr Gilmore has said. It was standard practice when introducing a new licence system to validate the existing licences to protect jobs and investment, he said. All the Bill's provisions, including penalties, would apply to existing licences.
Sea lice are returning to "devastate" Connemara sea trout for the ninth year in succession, the Western Regional Fisheries Board has said. These infestations are occurring after a year when lice levels on fish farms have been "unacceptably high", the board said in a statement this weekend.
The previous policy to "fallow" some bays completely during the spring months had, apparently, been abandoned by fish farmers, the board said. Affected areas include Berfraghboy Bay, the Gowla fishery, the Invermore fishery and the Costello in Co Galway. Mr Michael Kennedy, the board's regional manager, described the return of the problem as "intolerable".
