25 Mar 2026, 18:40
The Committee of Public Accounts will meet on Thursday, 26 March 2026 from 09.30am
At 10.30am, the Committee will meet with the Deputy CEO and the Chair of the Board of Inland Fisheries Ireland and the Secretary General of Department of Climate, Energy and Environment.
The Committee will examine the 2023 and 2024 Financial Statement of IFI and the Comptroller and Auditor General’s Special Report 118 – Governance, internal control and value for money issues in IFI.
Key issues to be discuss include:
• Payments to former Chief Executive Officer
• Lack of control of receipts in respect of salmon research programme
• Significant levels of non-compliant procurement
• Uninsured IFI vehicles
Additional matters include
• Deteriorating condition of watercourses and lakes due to pollution and invasive species
• Declining fish stocks/returning to spawn
• Increasing pollution of Lough Derg (Tipperary), which is the planned source of additional Dublin water supply
• Ability of IFI to detect and prosecute those responsible for fish kills
• Exercising of the fisheries protection function of IFI, including adequacy of patrolling
• Failure of prosecution of pollution and fish-kills
Speaking ahead of the meeting, Committee Cathaoirleach Deputy John Brady said: “Inland Fisheries Ireland plays a critical statutory role in protecting and managing the State’s inland fisheries resource, and it is vital that an agency entrusted with such an important environmental mandate operates to the highest standards of governance and accountability.
The Committee will examine the 2023 and 2024 Financial Statements of IFI and Special Report 118 of the Comptroller and Auditor General, focusing on payments to the former Chief Executive Officer, weaknesses in controls over receipts for the salmon research programme, significant levels of non-compliant procurement and the operation of uninsured IFI vehicles.
Members are also acutely conscious of the wider context: deteriorating water quality in rivers and lakes due to pollution and invasive species, declining fish stocks returning to spawn, and the increasing pollution pressures on Lough Derg, a planned source of additional water supply for Dublin.
The Committee will seek assurances that governance failures have been fully addressed, and that IFI has the capacity and resources it needs to detect and prosecute those responsible for fish kills and pollution.”
Watch the meeting live here or on the Oireachtas smartphone app for Apple and Android.
