Countryside Alliance Ireland - love the countryside

EVENTUALLY - A COMMONSENSE APPROACH TO DRIFT NETTING FOR SALMON

CAI warmly welcomes the recommendation from the National Salmon Commission to the Minister for the Marine, Noel Dempsey TD that all drift netting for salmon should cease at the end of the 2006 season. The commission also recommended to the Minister that there should be a system of compensation introduced for those leaving the sector.

In addition, the Commission also recommended that there should be some additional limitations on anglers – a reduction from 20 to 15 in the number of tags available to anglers annually and a limitation of one fish per angler per day in September.

The cessation of drift netting from the end of 2006 is in line with the advice of the Standing Scientific Committee of the Commission (although it is arguable that they would have preferred an immediate end with no drift netting in 2006) and of the National Fishery Management Executive, whose advice the Minister has always followed in the past.

This is not necessarily the end of drift netting. The Minister still has to make his decision, based on the advice he is being given by the Commission and in theory could chose to ignore this advice. CAI will be writing to the Minister to reinforce our calls for an immediate end to drift netting in Ireland.

The angling bodies represented on the Commission deserve great credit for steering this decision through the Commission and for their tireless work in trying to bring about an end to drift netting.