I propose to take Questions Nos. 8, 23 and 34 together. I would refer the House to the reply given by the Minister for the Marine, Dr. Woods, on 23 June on this matter.
In the areas covered by the conservation by-laws made by the Minister recently I would have to say that there is little prospect of worthwhile fishing for sea trout being possible this year. However, in large areas of the western seaboard covering counties Kerry, north Mayo and Donegal, good catches of sea trout continue to be made and prospects are quite good.
The question of obtaining an objective viewpoint on the problem of the decline of sea trout in the west has already been dealt with through my Department's initiative in setting up a scientific working group, separate from the Sea Trout Action Group (STAG), to examine the issues. While the programme planning, implementation and evaluation carried out by the scientific working group were all independent of STAG's operation, care was taken to include all the scientists working on the sea trout problem in Ireland — including those funded by STAG — in the membership of this scientific working group.
The report of this working group, which was issued last December, therefore represents a synthesis of the informed scientific views on this problem, and represents as objective a view as can be obtained. I do not therefore consider it necessary or desirable to bring in a foreign expert to overlay the scientific information already at my disposal. I would also point out that a working group of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea which reviewed the available scientific data last summer concluded that the hypothesis that, in all probability, sea lice from fish farms are a major factor in the collapse of sea trout stocks in the west is not justified in the light of that data.