Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

May I give the wider assessment of the past ten years? We were at a crisis stage 15 years ago. If I recall correctly, Noel Dempsey was Minister at the time. We were at a crisis point and still had drift netting at sea. The issue of drift netting was critical because such netting is indiscriminate. If you had a drift net off either the west or east coast to catch salmon coming down, you could not tell which river they were going to. It was not scientific. You could not tell whether that fish was the last to go up a particular river, so it was vital that drift netting be stopped. That has worked in the sense that it has stopped the precipitous decline that had been under way since the 1970s, which is when drift netting and draft netting were at their height and when there were hundreds of thousands of salmon. There had been a continuous downward curve since then. The numbers have not come back up as much as we would have liked but there has at least been a stabilisation and, in some rivers, a restoration.

This is a complex issue to deal with. As I have said, it is connected to global warming because salmon are very sensitive to water temperatures. We are at the southern end of the feasible range for salmon. Salmon numbers further south have dropped by even more. They are also very sensitive to pollution. We have a significant and ongoing problem with water pollution in all of our rivers. We have gone from a largely pristine river system to having only 20 or so river systems being so described. To go local, catch and release has been implemented in the Boyne in the Deputy's own area. There is still the ability to fish to help with conservation. It is not as if there are not salmon going up the Boyne. I happened to visit Dowth recently and the point was made that Knowth, Dowth and Newgrange were the centre of early civilisation on our island because there was the most incredible protein source at the bend in the river just beneath where those portal tombs are located. It was therefore the ideal place for civilisation to thrive. Could we get back to those numbers on the Boyne? I certainly believe we should set that as an objective. It is not lost. I have seen salmon jump over the weir at Clonskeagh. We can restore the stock as a critical contribution to restoring biodiversity in Europe. It is of that much significance.