Fishermen are blaming the ESB, manager of the Shannon, for the collapse of the eel fishery on the waterway this summer.
The ESB took over responsibility for managing the fishery following the building of the hydroelectricity station at Ardnacrusha outside Limerick in 1929. The building of a dam, as part of that scheme, restricts the movement of migratory fish, including eels.
Since 1959 efforts have been made to restock the upper river with elvers (young eels) which travel from the Sargasso Sea in the Gulf of Mexico to freshwater lakes before maturing.
But Mr Michael Flanagan, chairman of the Shannon Eel Fishermen's Association (SEFA), which represents about 70 fishermen, said there had been a steady decline in the catch over the past decade and there was no vision in developing it. "Last year we produced 82 tonnes, the lowest return since 1990 when the fishery was reopened," he said.
The season for fishing brown eels ends next Saturday, but the returns have been even lower this year. Mr Brian Ingram, an SEFA member, said the fishery had "totally collapsed". He said the restocking efforts had been "pure tokenism" over the years, a claim denied by the ESB. But he compared its efforts to the Lough Neagh fishery in the North which is run on a co-operative basis and is restocked with four tonnes of elvers annually. It produces 700 tonnes of eels for the Dutch market, and employs about 400 fishermen.
Mr Flanagan said the Irish eel fishery could be a £60 million industry. He is calling for a 10-year development and restocking strategy for the Shannon, involving the fishermen, which would bring the fishery up to the Lough Neagh standard.
"We know from old CIE export records that the Shannon produced more than Lough Neagh in the early 1900s. We estimate that hundreds of fishermen benefited from the resource," he said.
Relations between the fishermen and the ESB have become strained following an acrimonious meeting last year. Mr Flanagan said that in return for the 88-megawatt station, which provides 3 per cent of the State's electricity requirement, there should be a management policy providing a sustainable livelihood for the association's members. "It is a small price to pay for the profits they are making out of Ardnacrusha," he said.
Mr Gerry Gough, manager of the ESB's Fisheries Conservation, which has had a statutory responsibility to "manage, conduct and preserve" about a third of the State's inland fisheries since 1935, said that that remit precluded a development role.
Added to that is the increasing scarcity of elvers, "a Europe-wide issue" and the dangers of importing diseases if stocks are bought from European outlets. Mr Gough said market research had indicated that the wild eel market was in decline. Prices now were less than half what they were four years ago, and eel farms were on the increase. "In 18 months from one tonne of elvers they can produce 200 tonnes of eels," he said.
In 1992 the ESB commissioned NUI Galway to carry out a study of eel stocks in the Shannon. Mr Gough said the report pointed out that there was not sufficient stock for commercial development although there was potential for part-time fishermen if they get involved in partnerships and added-value activities such as smoking the catch.
"We will facilitate people who want to do it. Nobody has taken up that offer. They persist in the idea that they can catch a lot of fish if we spend huge amounts of money buying elvers," he said.
But Mr Flanagan pointed out that the report also noted that the Shannon lakes system could yield comparable stocks to Lough Neagh "given good stocking, comprehensive management and efficient fishing".
In November Mr Gough will introduce a conservation strategy and has commissioned a company to stock the Shannon with 1.5 tonnes of elvers annually, less than the estimated 4.8 tonnes needed to follow a development strategy but sufficient to maintain stocks.
Given the scarcity of elvers, Mr Gough said, the ESB was "doing further than anybody else I know anywhere in trying to restock a river". He added that in January the ESB board had reaffirmed its commitment to its conservation of the fisheries while the electricity market was being opened up to competition.
Meanwhile, the Department of the Marine has undertaken to establish an eel strategy group, which will examine the industry's future.