Seanad debates
Wednesday, 15 October 2003
Fishery Policy: Statements.
If not already involved, the regional fisheries boards should be asked immediately to give a helping hand to the Marine Institute. It appears the Marine Institute is involved in a whole lot of other research projects and activities which are totally unrelated to the management, conservation and prosecution of breaches of fisheries regulations. There is no reason the kind of activity we saw in a recent television programme should be tolerated and those responsible should be brought before the courts and prosecuted. Otherwise they will damage the industry and put its development at risk because people will be concerned about the produce. There is an urgent need for the fisheries boards and the central authority in particular to get involved immediately with the Marine Institute and all the other agencies of State, including the Garda Síochána, to stamp out illegal activity which is damaging the industry, putting the jobs of people at risk and giving a bad name to Irish aquaculture, which it has not had up to now.
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