Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I would like discuss the unsustainable mussel dredging on Irish coasts and the operation of SI 461/2021. I am raising this matter because it is something about which I have a particular concern. SI 461/2021 states that mussel dredging opened with effect from 14 September 2021. The statutory instrument provides that persons may fish for mussels between that date and 16 December next. The concern is that this statutory instrument is facilitating about a dozen large boats working around protected Natura 2000 site sandbanks in the Irish Sea and off Irish coasts. It is enabling them to remove so-called mussel seed from our commons and relay it into aquaculture sites.

The seed then grows on the estuary with or without further dredging. It is often dredged up again for sale. The unique Irish definition of mussel seed, which, according to SI 461/2021, is mussels of any size as long as they are not intended for direct human consumption, allows big vessels to dredge up entire biogenic reefs wherever they find them. I understand from reading the statutory instrument that while a small number of sites are excluded from dredging within the terms of it, they are far few in number.

There is serious concern about the impact this dredging is having on mussel beds and the broader issue of sustainable development. There is a wider issue about the need to halt unmanaged fisheries. Coastwatch and other organisations have tried for years to ensure that this practice be regulated and halted unless we can establish that it can be done without undue environmental impact. The real concern is that there is no mussel management plan and that exploitation of commercial shellfish without a species management plan or adequate impact assessment will contravene the marine strategy framework directive, MSFD, descriptor 3 requirements and have a serious impact on our biodiversity.

Some years ago when I was newly elected to the Seanad, I raised a similar issue about cockle dredging at Passage East in Waterford. The then Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, who had responsibility for it reversed the statutory instrument in response to the concerns I and environmentalists raised with him about the impact of big boats coming in and sweeping the seabed and destroying biodiversity and marine life. What is happening in this instance is quite similar.

I am asking that the practice provided for in the statutory instrument be halted. I am not convinced that it is being done sustainably. There is no data to show it is being done sustainably. There is a real concern that these large, high-carbon-footprint vessels are dredging in and out of protected marine sites and that this is impacting on the biogenic reefs formed by mussels, which are crucial for the marine food chain and which form biodiversity hotspots in the sea. There is a real concern that substantial volumes of mussels have already been dredged up and that serious damage is being done.

I do not have data on how many boats are active, but I have been told that there are 11 or 12. It should be possible to set the statutory instrument aside because of the assumptions that are being made or that it seems are being made on foot of it. These are unsubstantiated assumptions about mussel population dynamics. Specifically, the statutory instrument should be set aside because we do not have an environmental impact assessment and there is a real concern that we are damaging biodiversity at our marine sites.

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