Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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243. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources the status of boat fishermen fishing in rivers (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21748/16]

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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The setting of quotas for salmon is governed by the National Salmon Management Program. The total allowable catch on the River Feale for 2016 was set at 944 for the commercial sector. This represents 65% of the overall quota of 1452 for the River Feale, which is divided between the angling and commercial sector.

The commercial fishing season commenced on 1 June 2016 and closes on Saturday 30 July 2016. There were 30 public licences and 2 private licences available for issue in 2016. To date there have been 28 public licences and 1 private licence issued, bringing the total to 29 licences.

Initially each licence holder was given 10 tags with their licence. Tags are issued in batches of 10, and as the total number of tags to be issued was nearing the quota they are issued in groups of 5. Currently all 944 tags have been issued to commercial licence holders.

Based on a review of logbooks, as at 12 July 2016, there have been approximately 647 salmon caught and tagged. This means that there are a further 297 tags which have yet to be used by licence holders.

Included in this figure are 5 licence holders who have not yet commenced fishing and are holding their initial issue of 10 tags. There are also licence holders that are fishing periodically and not fishing regularly enough to use up their tags completely.

The challenge for IFI Officers is to ensure that all fish caught are tagged. This requires increased Fisheries Patrols on fishermen for the remainder of the season .

In addition to the above, there were 441 brown tags issued to anglers on the River Feale, and the total allowable catch for the angling sector on the river is 508.