Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the comprehensive reply from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. In fairness, there is a lot of information in that. The crux of it is in the last line of the second last paragraph "the initiation of assessment processes on more recent regulations or bye-laws does not imply that the Department considers bye-laws Nos. 809 or 806 of 2006 to be non-compliant with the habitats directive". Of course, they are not saying they are compliant with the habitats directive in that case either. In my view they are not. I believe we cannot have a situation where a bye-law is challenged and thrown out because it tries to protect salmon and trout while the same bye-laws operational in those great western lakes that are designed to protect pike and coarse fish are not the subject of an appropriate assessment. We cannot have one rule being applied to salmon and trout and another rule being applied to pike and coarse fish. It is quite clear the two bye-laws in question need to be reviewed, rescinded and started again with appropriate assessment to see what impact they are having on salmon and trout in the great western lakes.