Seanad debates
Wednesday, 15 October 2003
Fishery Policy: Statements.
I accept that the activities of drift netting and draught netting are centuries old. They lived side by side with angling for so long and there was no difficulty. However, now that drift netting has become so efficient, it has become a problem. If one has miles of monofilament, it is very easy to sweep everything in sight, particularly where fish are swimming near the surface. This is an issue and the work being done by R. E. Vickerson with the North Atlantic Salmon Trust has set a headline for us that hopefully we can follow. I accept that draught netting in the estuaries is probably not very detrimental to fish stocks, but drift netting out at sea is a problem.
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