Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 November 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Fishing Industry: Discussion

5:00 pm

Mr. Michael Keatinge:

I will just quickly address that. Up to about ten years ago there was a wild capture fishery that fell under our remit. The Senator may recall that a group chaired by Padraic White looked at the issue. This was in the context, as Dr. Heffernan mentioned, of the decline in returning salmon from the high seas. At the time there was a strong belief that while the wild fishery was not having a direct impact, because of the insufficient numbers of fish that were getting back, it had an indirect impact and we bought those nets out. The Senator might remember that we decommissioned all the drift nets.

In talking about Mayo, the Moy has probably one of the biggest surpluses in Europe and by coincidence is right beside a number of big fish farms.

I am not trying to make any particular point except to say that these things can occur in tandem. There is essentially no wild fishery any more in Ireland. What we have is salmon aquaculture and tourism fishing-angling and these come under the remit of the IFI.