Inland Fisheries Ireland

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 July 2014

Tuesday, 1 July 2014

Questions (283, 284)

Pádraig MacLochlainn

Question:

283. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources further to Parliamentary Question No. 96 of 11 June 2014, in which he states there was no omission from the list previously supplied, if he will now confirm the following facts, that IFI an or its predecessors were co-authors of the SUMBAWS report and thus the report itself falls under the scope of PQ 18147/14 and it should have been cited in the response; that the scientific paper cited in his response contains data not included in the SUMBAWS report as that data was not available at the time of making the SUMBAWS report and thus SUMBAWS itself should have been included in the response given to Parliamentary Question No. 110 of 16 April 2014; that the SUMBAWS report contains a large section regarding Irish research on sea trout interactions with sea lice and that this research was not cited in any other paper or publication from IFI and thus should have been listed in the response given to Parliamentary Question No.110 of 16 April 2014; further, on foot of the above the way he can contend that there were no omissions in his answers to Parliamentary Question No. 96 of 11 June 2014 and Parliamentary Question No. 110 of 16 April 2014; and if he will now correct the record. [28335/14]

Pádraig MacLochlainn

Question:

284. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will now instruct his Department and Inland Fisheries Ireland to make public the important research findings regarding salmon and sea trout contained within the SUMBAWS report. [28336/14]

Written answers

Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources

I propose to take Questions 283 and 284 together.

I refer the Deputy to the reply to Question No 96 of 11 June 2014. The position remains as set out in that reply and the issue of correcting the record does not arise.

The Deputy originally requested the full title of all pieces of research initiated or on behalf of IFI, either separately or collaboratively with other bodies, for each of the years 2003 to 2013. The SUMBAWS project was not initiated by, or on behalf of IFI or any of its predecessors. The then Central Fisheries Board were invited to participate in three of the eight work packages of the project, and as I have already clarified the SUMBAWS project was an EU project and was coordinated by the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. The SUMBAWS report was authored by Prof. Chris Todd and Dr Neil Hazon of the University of St. Andrews, and it was then submitted to the EU.

The IFI research elements of the project were included in the information already supplied to the Deputy. As the Deputy will appreciate as the University of St. Andrews are the project Co-ordinators the release of the report and the information contained therein is a matter entirely for them.