Róisín Garvey (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I want to say a few words about the ongoing issue in Clare, namely, the fish kill in a river. There is a public meeting about it tomorrow night in the Falls Hotel in Ennistymon. There is an ongoing investigation, thanks to Inland Fisheries Ireland and its dedicated staff. The people want results and answers. We have to set a precedent because it was a crime against nature. Thousands of fish of every variety, including salmon, trout and even eels, were killed, which means otters and herons are not coming back up the river. I do not want to let this issue go away without a proper investigation and somebody being brought to justice. We do not want this to happen in any other river in the country. We need to set a strong precedent about the importance of protecting a river and how bad it is to dump anything that will cause a huge kill of thousands of fish, especially when we are in a biodiversity emergency and are struggling as it is to keep salmon and trout in our rivers.A fisheries expert told me that as a result of this fish kill, the river will take 20 years to recover. We need to make sure that people are held to account and that a strong precedent is set. This should not be tolerated in Ireland and should never happen again.