Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I welcome the Minister's comments just before he had to leave. Inland Fisheries Ireland's role is to protect, manage and conserve more than 74,000 km of river and 128,000 ha of lakes. It is an incredible amenity. I think of the operations teams. My thoughts are with the fisheries officers, environmental officers, inspectors, people involved in angling and the people who are working on the ground. Over the decades, they have done great work. Now the agency has this reputation due to the ill-governance and malfunctioning of the executive. It is shocking because it has impacted the reputation of an agency that people have worked for and have pride in, because they do so much work for us.

The area I am in has the River Suck, between Roscommon and Galway. It is the natural county boundary. My experience is of working locally with anglers in the Ballinasloe district. The work that impressed me, which was done to manage our waterways, involved IFI working with local anglers to ensure that angling could take place, to improve access to our rivers to make them safer, and working with the local community. That is what people on the ground in IFI who I know were doing. Senator Seán Kyne has told about this over recent months. The Minister has spoken on this and action has been taken and it is in the legal realm now. We need to see urgent action with the Public Appointments Service to put a board in place to manage the strategic direction and governance of IFI and to manage the reputation of this body, which is to market and promote so many things, especially tourism in the Hidden Heartlands area. The new board is to drive this agency forward. It does important work in Ireland. The Minister also has to ensure that we are dealing with the issues that have been raised by Senator Kyne and other Senators.Many great things have been done by IFI and it is shocking to hear of this now. Action could have been taken six months ago to deal with this. My questions come down to the need for oversight of boards, governance measures, project management and the need to take action faster to reduce the kind of impact on a whole agency that we face now. IFI does important work on our inland fisheries and waterways and works with Waterways Ireland and local communities on the ground, including people who are anglers and love fishing and engaging with our waterways. Our local association, working with IFI, had funding to bring nursing home residents who live very close to the marina on a day out angling. That is the sort of work that gets done in our local areas. I call on the Minister to take urgent action to get the board in place. This should not have continued for this long.