Dr. Cecil Beamish:

The NPWS is dealing with specified areas, designated as Natura 2000 areas that have now been mapped. All the features in those Natura areas have been mapped. The NPWS is saying that within this bay, which could be 30 miles by 20 miles, there are these areas of particular interest. These are the things that this area was designated to preserve. Those areas must be taken into account in the licensing system. There might be other areas where there are no such implications or interactions with the scientific interest. We are talking about spatial considerations. Salmon conservation is primarily the function of the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, comes under that Department. IFI deals with the policy on the conservation of wild salmon. It has set the objectives for salmon. When it is proposed to establish a salmon farm or there is an application for renewal of a salmon farm licence, an environmental impact study must be conducted and an environmental statement provided.

It must go through statutory and public consultation, of which IFI is one of the consultees. All of that is fed into the decision-making process. There are management measures in place dealing with things like sea lice. There is a system in place and protocols that govern all salmon farms. There are 14 inspections a year on the farms and all the results are available on the website. There are treatment trigger levels set under the protocols which require treatments to happen when lice levels go above a certain level in those inspections. There are consequences if those treatments do not work. There is a ratcheting-up system. The lice are endemic and have been there for millions of years. They are endemic in the marine environment in about 40 different species. They build up on salmon farms on occasion and they have to be managed. It is in the interest of both salmon farmers and wild salmon interests that they be managed and kept at low levels.