Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The life cycle of the eel is between 20 and 50 years. Eels leave Irish waters to breed in the Saragossa Sea, which is thousands of kilometres away, and drift back to the European landmass on the currents. The purpose of all of our actions is to conserve the eel stock and ensure eels survive and are able to get out to sea. It will take a long time for stocks to recover, which means it will not be possible to commercially exploit eels for a significant period, if ever. Our only hope for the future is to allow stocks to recover and we banned all commercial fisheries for this reason. Any decision to allow eel fishing would result in stocks being decimated.

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