Brian O'Shea (Waterford, Labour)
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I welcome the opportunity to address an important issue which is having a huge impact on the lives of driftnet fishermen in County Waterford. The compensation currently being offered to salmon fishermen in the county is a joke. The driftnet ban is causing severe injustice and this must not be repeated when the time comes to allocate funds to enable fishermen to establish alternative enterprises. Waterford fishermen make a very strong case that the hardship fund payments should be the same for all licences surrendered with account taken of the years of service of the fisherman surrendering the licence, along the lines of redundancy payments in industry.

The compensation scheme seriously discriminates against Waterford salmon fishermen and their colleagues in the surrounding areas of the south-east region. In the Waterford district of the southern fisheries region, the number of driftnet licences in 2005 was 171, with an average catch per licence of 55 salmon. In the Lismore district, the number with driftnet licences in the same year was 81 and the average catch was 125 salmon. In contrast, the average catches per licence in Kerry, Mayo and Sligo were 562, 511 and 478, respectively.

As the migratory path of salmon comes down the western coast, around the south-west corner of Ireland and along the south coast, the salmon returning to rivers in Waterford run the hazard of the driftnet fisheries from County Donegal before returning to their rivers of origin. In addition, even though fishermen were given an undertaking that the information they provided regarding their catches to facilitate the quota and tagging system would not be used against them, this is not the case.

Driftnet salmon fishermen are being offered €2,020 for voluntarily surrendering their licences, with a payment from the €25 million hardship fund based on six times their annual catch of salmon for the five years to 2005, multiplied by €23. They must then verifiably decommission their nets and their boat, technically known as fixed engines, to the satisfaction of the competent authority. Given that a basic set of nets and fittings costs in the region of €2,500, the compensation for the voluntary surrender of a driftnet salmon fishing licence is less than the value of the equipment which must be decommissioned. Surely the fishermen must be at least compensated for verifiably decommissioning their nets and boats. The hardship fund payments should be the same for each licence surrendered with the length of fishing service considered.

I am calling for the entire question of compensation to be revisited and for realistic payments for those in the Waterford constituency who are being forced to give up an income and a traditional way of life for a pittance. I am also determined that a fair share of the €5 million fund for the development of new enterprises by the salmon fishermen will go to those who are badly affected by the ban in Waterford and not to those who are part of the strong lobby in the west or to large processing co-operatives which have access to other funding through Bord Iascaigh Mhara or Údarás na Gaeltachta.

The position of the Suir and Nore snap net fishermen who hold 132 licences should also be reviewed. These fishermen believe the cessation of this ancient method of fishing will cause a deterioration in their beats and that a heritage type of licence should be maintained to assist in stock assessments, counting fish and other research assignments. The salmon fishermen have repeatedly made the point that there are no fish counters in the Barrow, Nore, Suir or Munster Blackwater. Such technology is urgently needed to compile exact numbers of fish returning to these rivers because, without counters, it is impossible to know if and when the conservation limit is reached.

The fishermen believe that for the present, the sale of rod-caught salmon should not be re-introduced and that the issue should be revisited once all rivers meet their conservation limit.

Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Browne, regrets he cannot be in the House to deal with this matter. I believe he is meeting fishermen.

It is the Government's strongly held view that our wild salmon stock is a national asset which must be conserved and protected, as well as being exploited as a resource by us all on a sustainable basis. If we do not take action now, the relentless decline in stocks will continue, leading to the inevitable demise of the wild salmon we value as a cultural, recreational and economic resource. International best practice for the management of North Atlantic salmon requires the adoption of the precautionary approach and the cessation of indiscriminate mixed stock fisheries. As Members are aware, the Government's primary motivation in its decision to align future management of the wild salmon fishery with the scientific advice and introduce the appropriate regulations to cease mixed stock fishing is the conservation of the wild salmon species, which has long been regarded as one of Ireland's most prized fish. It is vital to afford every protection to the remaining salmon stocks and to clearly prioritise conservation over catch. The current imperative is to maintain stocks above conservation limits or, at the very least, halt the observed decline.

In future, the wild salmon fishery will be managed on the basis of individual river stocks. Harvesting of salmon will be restricted to rivers which have been identified as meeting their conservation limit in compliance with Council Directive 92/43/EEC on the conservation of natural habitats and wild flora and fauna, the habitats directive.

The hardship fund adopted by the Government is aimed at alleviating hardship related to loss of income derived from salmon harvesting in recent years caused by the cessation of mixed stock fishing in the interest of conservation. The approach adopted to determining the hardship payments is based on the recommendations of an independent group which the Minister of State, Deputy Browne, appointed to examine the implications of alignment with the scientific advice for the commercial salmon fishing sector in 2007 and beyond. In its report, the group noted that the level of hardship likely to be experienced would vary both in extent and scale. Taking all factors into account and noting in particular there is no legal obligation on the State to provide compensation in a situation where it is imposing management measures that are fundamentally in the public good, it proposed to provide a measure of relief to each individual in line with the level of hardship likely to be experienced and recommended that relief should be based on the recent catch history of the individual licence holder from 2001 to 2005.

The Government accepted the recommendation of the independent group and has determined that the level of payment should be based on the average net income per salmon in the commercial fishery for the five years from 2001 to 2005. This income calculation was based by the group on the average price obtained per fish each year less the costs incurred by fishermen. Each individual licence holder who applies to the fund is set to receive six times his or her average catch multiplied by the average net income per salmon. An additional payment equal to six times the current licence fee will be made in all cases. The Minister of State and the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Deputy Noel Dempsey, believe this is a fair and reasonable allocation based on a robust and convincing assessment by the group.

The terms are applied to driftnet fishermen in the Waterford estuary in the same way as to all other driftnet fishermen. In future, the harvest of salmon by any means will be restricted to those stocks of rivers which meet their conservation limits. This means there will be no indiscriminate capture of fish. Commercial fishing and recreational angling can continue only on the scientifically identified exploitable surplus.

The standing scientific committee of the National Salmon Management Commission has advised that stocks of salmon in the rivers Barrow, Nore and Suir are below conservation limits. For this reason, no killing of salmon by any method in the River Barrow is permitted during the 2007 season. Angling on a catch-and-release basis only is permitted on the waters of the Nore and Suir. This reflects the relative status of the stocks of the rivers. The regional fisheries boards and the Marine Institute will monitor the stocks in developing a management plan for each of the rivers with a view to identifying the extent of the recovery, if any, arising from the cessation of the mixed stock commercial fishery and any stock rehabilitation works undertaken. The application of the by-laws will be kept under constant review. In the event that stocks recover in the rivers of the Waterford Estuary in the future, it should be possible to exploit the identified surplus within the constraints permitted by the habitats directive as transposed by the European Communities (National Habitats) Regulations 1997, SI 94 of 1997.