Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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500. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he will address issues with regard to the salmon quota for an angling club (details supplied) in County Kerry; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13817/18]

Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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IFI manages salmon stocks on an individual river basis as each of Ireland’s 147 salmon rivers (including river sections and estuaries) has its own genetically unique stock of salmon.

IFI is supported in its management role by the independent Standing Scientific Committee (SSC), comprising scientists from a range of organisations.  Scientific and management assessments of each of the distinct stocks are carried out every year with IFI engaged in extensive stock monitoring which feeds into the SSC's annual reviews.

The SSC uses catch returns to individual rivers (rod catch, catch and release and any commercial catch) over the previous five years along with a rod exploitation rate to estimate the total salmon returns in each of the previous five years.  An exploitation rate is applied to raise the recorded rod catch to an estimate of the total salmon stock in the river as catch statistics account for a proportion of the river’s stock..

I am advised by IFI that the mid-point (most likely) rod exploitation rate is used for the Roughty at 10% with a minimum of 5% and a maximum of 15%. Were the medium exploitation rate used for the Roughty, this would predict a much lower salmon stock and therefore a lower surplus available.

The wetted area of Irish salmon rivers was first estimated in 2003 when the wetted area of Roughty was 86.9 hectares of accessible wetted area for salmon. The estimation of salmon habitat was scientifically revised in 2012, and the revised wetted area for the Roughty was 95.2 hectares of which 81.3 hectares were accessible to salmon. River specific salmon data in relation to egg deposition is used to calculate each river’s individual conservation limit.

Other factors in relation to the make-up of each river’s individual stock also impact the conservation limit. When compared to the Bandon, the lower average weight of one sea winter salmon on the Roughty combined with a lower proportion of large salmon (multi-sea-winter fish) results in a greater salmon egg requirement /m2 and therefore a higher salmon conservation limit for the Roughty river than if conservation limit was based solely on wetted area.

As each salmon river has its own genetically unique stock and the component parts of the stock vary, the issue of establishing a conservation limit can be complex.  In that regard, I will provide a detailed account of the methodologies for calculating wetted area and establishing conservation limits, including scientific references, for the Deputy.