Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I concur with what Deputy Nash said. The Minister of State, Deputy O’Dowd, met the group on many occasions. I go fishing as often as I can myself, but not often enough. As the Minister of State is aware, fishing is an important past time in this country and it is also a source of revenue to the Exchequer because many tourists, in particular from the Continent, come to this country to fish in our waters. It is very important that we get the catch-and-release system right. As Deputy Nash said, there is currently contention as to whether we are correctly measuring the amount of fish in the rivers.

I wrote to the Minister of State on the matter last April and I received a reply from him. He referred to the forecast model used to identify the number of fish in the rivers. In the Glyde river the forecast is approximately 19% of the conservation limit for salmon and it is 27% for the River Dee. From speaking to fishermen locally who know the rivers in question, they think the figures are very low. All we seek is that the officials would speak again to local fishermen and try to come up with a revised methodology and that both sides can agree on the exact number of fish in the rivers based on as close an estimate as possible. At the moment we contend that we are underestimating the amount of fish and that it would be okay to end the catch-and-release scheme.

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