Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The most serious issue facing Inland Fisheries Ireland is not whether it has the explicit power to prosecute offences under the Fisheries Acts - it is the declining fish stocks in our rivers. It is all well and good to amend the legislation to beef up powers to prosecute, but what difference will it make when there are no fish left in our rivers to protect? As Deputy Pringle has pointed out, the legislation that has been introduced by the Minister of State provides for the upholding of prosecutions that were carried out by a body that did not have the power to prosecute. It is an unjust sleight of hand, to say the least, to suggest to those who did not appeal such prosecutions that those prosecutions are grand even though they were taken with no legal basis.

Although Inland Fisheries Ireland seems to spend much of its energies trying to protect fish from fishermen, I suggest that the fish are not being protected and the stocks are not being replenished. I will give an example. The conservation limit for salmon is not being met on the River Slaney, like many rivers across the country, and has not been met for many years. While illegal fishing and poaching may well be a factor in declining fish stocks, it is no more than a tiny factor. Heavy sea lice infestation from salmon farming has resulted in additional mortality in migratory North Atlantic salmon. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted? Water quality and the negative effects of afforestation, drainage effluent discharge, siltation and agricultural enrichment have an impact on juvenile salmon production. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted? Water extraction for growing agricultural crops and for industry leads to lower water levels. This leads to fish being unable to clear weirs to travel upstream to spawn. What is being done about that? Who is being prosecuted?

All anglers on the River Slaney are aware that salmon get trapped on a daily basis at a privately owned tailrace at Clohamon outside Enniscorthy. Inland Fisheries Ireland has undertaken just two major inspections at the tailrace since 2007. The most recent inspection, which was undertaken in July 2016, resulted in Inland Fisheries Ireland removing approximately 2,000 sea trout and 200 adult salmon. The survival rate of the relocated fish was negligible. When a similar inspection was undertaken by Inland Fisheries Ireland in August 2013, some 450 sea trout and 120 salmon were removed. It is pathetic that there have been just two inspections of this very obvious and consistent problem over a ten-year period, especially when the river is not meeting salmon conservation limits. Meanwhile, the fishermen are losing out. Over a decade ago, all 75 salmon draft-net fishing licences were suspended downriver on the River Slaney. The talk at that time was that draft-net fishing might return after two or three years when the salmon stocks had been given time to recover. At the time, the idea was that by suspending the licences more salmon would be able to make it upriver to be able to spawn. Ten years on, not only have things not improved - they have worsened.

Things got even worse in January of this year when rod fishing licences were suspended, and not for the first time, because of diminishing stocks. As a result, rod fishermen, the presence of whom would be a deterrent to poachers, are not allowed to catch and release salmon. We have been told that the standing scientific committee on salmon which surveys the River Slaney on a continuous basis has continued to arrive at the conclusion that salmon stocks in the river are far below what they should be. The failure of salmon stocks to recover is continuing to result in the extension of the suspension on the net licences. This prompts a question. If the net fishermen on the River Slaney are the problem, why have salmon stocks on the river not recovered since the suspension came into place? If the stocks have not recovered after ten years of no draft-net fishing, it goes without saying that some other factor or factors could be preventing the stock from replenishing. Nobody on the River Slaney is more conscientious about conservation and maintaining the salmon and eel stock than the licensed fishermen. For some of them, their livelihoods depended on making sure there was no overfishing. Fishermen do not survive unless the stock survives. In this case, the draft-net fishermen were the first group to be penalised. It is now transpiring that they were not a serious factor in the dwindling salmon and eel numbers.

The second group to be penalised on the River Slaney were the anglers further upstream. Late last year, in a further knee-jerk reaction to dwindling salmon and eel numbers, the Minister banned anglers from catching salmon on the River Slaney in 2017. Over 100 objections were submitted to the Minister at the time. He might tell us if he responded to any of them. If the Minister had read any of the letters, he would have seen that the objectors had valid concerns, not least in respect of the 200 salmon and 2,000 sea trout that were pulled out of the Clohamon tailrace in August 2016.

To put that number in perspective, over the whole of 2006, the last year there was net fishing on the Slaney, net fishermen caught 365 salmon while rod fishermen caught 343. Before banning anglers, did the Minister give any consideration to the fact that the presence of anglers, even operating on a catch-and-release basis, would deter poachers and assist the staff of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, in protecting the salmon stocks? Given there is an independent standing scientific committee on salmon monitoring the River Slaney and other rivers for some time now, why are salmon stocks not recovering? Are we simply counting fish and penalising the easy targets? If a few rod fishermen are not allowed catch and release fish, why is a tailrace allowed to continue operating when it is trapping hundreds of healthy fish and preventing them from reaching spawning grounds?

Why are the agricultural and industry sectors not being investigated and sanctioned, given that it is not the fishermen who are the problem on the River Slaney? Since the late 1980s, bodies such as Teagasc have been telling the Government that nitrogen and phosphorus wastes from farming sources were leading to the slow but steady decline in the quality of rivers and lakes. Leakages of farmyard wastes, spreading slurry at the wrong rates or times and the overland flow of water containing phosphorus from soils already overloaded with it were causing pollution and a process of eutrophication that was leading to the disappearance of entire species of fish. For decades now, we have been watching our waters suffer because of contamination and nutrient run-off, primarily from agriculture. With recent extreme rainfall events, along with the certainty of more such events resulting from climate change, this problem is only going to get worse before it gets better.

Add to this the Government’s gung-ho attitude of increasing the national herd and we have a deteriorating chance or hope of improving the situation. The 2016 EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, report laid out quite plainly that the ongoing and planned expansion in the agricultural sector under Food Harvest 2020 and its successor, Food Wise 2025, may threaten improvements in water quality if not adequately managed. The dairy sector has been set a target of increasing milk production by 50% by 2020. Under the expansion plans, increased application of nitrogen and phosphorus to agricultural land is likely to happen in areas of the country where the concentrations of these nutrients in water are already elevated. The challenge is to target management measures to prevent any increases in nitrate and phosphorus concentrations in waters.

In 2012, some 53% of suspected cases of pollution in rivers were attributed to agriculture. Of the breaches found in 2014, some 52% were due to the poor management of livestock manures and other organic fertilisers, 16% were due to manure storage structural defects while 18% of breaches were simply due to poor management of clean waters. As the EPA pointed out, based on these figures, there is clearly room for improvement in the management of manures and organic fertilisers on a significant proportion of farms. Many of these issues can be solved by reasonably straightforward changes in the management of farmyards.

This is emergency legislation, the purpose of which is to secure prosecutions against those who breach the regulations designed to protect fish stocks in inland fisheries. Up to 64% of the land in this country is used for agricultural purposes with 80% of that land devoted to grass for cattle grazing. This is a big industry. Perhaps that is part of the problem. How many farms have ever faced prosecution for the nitrogen and phosphorous pollution destroying our rivers, waterways, lakes and fish stocks? How many surprise inspections are carried out into bad practices on farms?

The State certainly has a responsibility for the fact that sewage is still going directly into rivers and lakes. In 2017, this is nothing short of disgraceful. I had serious arguments with Phil Hogan, when he was environment Minister, about the incredible number of faulty septic tanks but nothing being done about them. At the current inspection rate, it will take over 200 years to inspect all individual septic tanks. When I debated this with Phil Hogan, I asked him what percentage of tanks in Wexford did he think were not functioning as well as they should be. He said, as the land in Wexford is good, there would only be a small percentage of faulty septic tanks, somewhere between 5% and 8%. I told him I had built a fair few of them in my time and that at least half the septic tanks in Wexford did not function properly. It was not because people did not follow the rules at the time. They did, but the rules were not right.

We have good soil for certain aspects of farming but we do not have good soil to take the bacteria out of wastewater coming from sewage before it reaches the water table. We have serious problems with contamination of the water table. Many of the outfalls from these individual septic tanks go to rivers which causes massive problems. There was no serious effort on the part of the Government to deal with this issue. We made a token gesture of inspecting septic tanks to placate the EU. We did not, however, make a genuine effort to deal with the fact that half of septic tanks do not function properly. It is a serious problem and should be addressed. It is all very well that the EU has left us alone, it is happy we are doing a little bit about it and all is grand. The truth be told, however, we are poisoning ourselves and certainly our fish stocks.

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