A group of Co Louth fishermen has taken a High Court challenge to the granting of a licence for mussel-farming in an area of Carlingford Lough.
The fishermen, including four members of the Carlingford Lough Shellfish Co-operative Society Ltd, are seeking an order quashing the granting by the Minister for the Marine of an aquaculture licence on August 3rd, 1995, to Mr Alex McCarthy, trading as Alex McCarthy Shellfish (AMS), Dock Road, Castlemungret, Co Limerick.
They claim the area in question is a public fishery and the Department had told them only a co-op could secure an aquaculture licence for it. However, the Department had some time after 1993 changed that policy without informing them and AMS had benefited from that change.
They claim the Minister granted the licence to AMS without giving them an opportunity to apply at the same time as AMS and without considering their later application.
The Minister adopted an arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable system based merely on chronological date of application, they allege.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC, for the fishermen, said the case was about the procedures adopted by the Minister when he granted a private company, AMS, an exclusive right to farm mussels in a large area of Carlingford Lough.
His clients had relied on the Department's assertions that no one could get a licence for a public fishery other than a co-op and had believed the AMS application could not succeed.
Now the Department appeared to be saying an individual or group could get a licence for the area in question on the basis of the Department's claim it had not been profitably fished, he said.
The defendants deny that the Minister adopted an arbitrary or unfair system of consideration of any licence application and say the method adopted was fair and appropriate.
The Minister admits the licence was granted to AMS without informing the fishermen applicants that the Minister's policy had changed but denies the applicants were not given an opportunity to apply for an aquaculture licence at the same time as AMS.
The hearing resumes tomorrow before Mr Justice Geoghegan.