Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 July 2021
194. Deputy Pádraig Mac Lochlainn asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications his views on the request from some inshore fishermen in Ireland that they would co-operate with the Marine Institute and other relevant authorities in conducting surveys on the abundance of wild salmon around the coast (details supplied). [37638/21]
View answerIreland manages salmon on an individual river basis as each of Ireland’s more than 140 salmon rivers has a genetically unique stock of salmon and the conservation imperative for each river derives from the status of its distinct stock. In that regard stock abundance can only be assessed at the individual river stock level.Management advice on each stock is provided annually by Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) which has statutory responsibility for salmon management. IFI is supported in its management by the assessment, carried out each year, of individual stocks and annual scientific advice from the Technical Expert Group on Salmon (TEGOS).
The determining factor as to whether a fishery may be open is the availability of a harvestable surplus which does not negatively impact the sustainability of each stock. This determination is made with regard to the requirements of the EU Habitats Directive under which Atlantic salmon is a protected species.
Fishing for salmon at sea is indiscriminate mixed stock fishing as it targets combined stocks from rivers in Ireland and other European countries. Many of the individual stocks are below safe biological limits and these stocks cannot be disaggregated at sea. The status of individual stocks is already well established and IFI research on aggregated stocks at sea necessarily concentrates on the significantly negative impacts on survival of migrating fish of factors such as sea-lice from salmon farms, predation and climate change in the marine phase of the salmon life-cycle.
In order to comply with the EU Habitats Directive and the principles of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organisation (NASCO), the Government decided in 2006 to cease all indiscriminate fishing in the sea and to manage all salmon fisheries strictly in line with scientific advice.
