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The Irish Federation of Pike Angling Clubs |  |
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Coarse Angling Permit - Media Transcript
PROGRAMME NEWS AT ONE STATION RTE RADIO 1 PRESENTER - SEAN O'ROURKE In a row with definite echoes of the rod licence war of over a decade ago, fishermen and tourism promoters in the Midlands have strongly criticised the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board today for introducing a new annual permit fee for coarse angling on twenty-five fisheries in the Shannon district. The Irish Federation of Pike Anglers has said its to boycott some of the best known coarse angling rivers in the country until the permit is scrapped or else fees are brought into line with trout fishing. From the River Inny in Westmeath this report from our Midlands Correspondent, Ciaran Mullooly. REPORTER - CIARAN MULLOOLY The angling sector is worth thousands of euro to the tourism business in this country. But since 1997 it's been in decline. At that stage it was estimated that one hundred and seventy thousand anglers came here every year. Now experts in the business say it's down to less than half of that. And the introduction of a new permit for coarse angling this year has further infuriated both the tourism promoters and the fishermen. JOHN CHAMBERS - CHAIRMAN - IRISH FEDERATION OF PIKE ANGLING CLUBS There's lovely water there behind me. I'm sure there's some pike there. I would have loved to have a rod with me today and had an hour or two's fishing here. But… I'm not going to…I'm not going to pay this permit to fish waters where they're taking our sport away. CIARAN MULLOOLY John Chambers is the Chairman of the Irish Federation of Pike Angling Clubs. This week outlining his outright opposition to plans by the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board to introduce an annual permit fee of thirty-five euro's on twenty-seven fisheries around the country, such as the River Inny and the River Brosna where the pursuit of pike, perch, roach and bream was free up to this stage. JOHN CHAMBERS Well as I say I'm not saying that we're opposed to the permit in itself. We're opposed to the inequity of it. And we have the sort of situation where this permit is… is on say the likes of Lough Sheelin which holds very good coarse stocks and very good pike stocks. Now I'm after paying a thirty-five euro permit to come and fish Lough Sheelin for pike and if I was there until February or March I could be getting caught in gill nets where the board are actually killing and removing and transferring the very fish I'm fishing for. So I'm damned if I'm going to pay to fish a lake where the Fisheries Board are killing the fish that I want to fish for. So you know where's the logic in that? CIARAN MULLOOLY The Shannon Regional Fisheries Board says the new permit fee is a fair one and trout anglers have been paying it for years. Chief Executive Officer, Eamon Cusack says the new permit will allow the Board to manage their fisheries in a safe and scientific manner. EAMON CUSACK - CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER - SHANNON REGIONAL FISHERIES BOARD The Board decided some time back that it would be fairer to charge a one-off fee on all of our fisheries rather than independent charges on each individual fisheries. So obviously some fisheries are predominantly trout. Some are predominantly bream. Some are predominantly pike. But overall there's a wide mix of fisheries there and a lot of water for anglers to utilise. And we believe it's the fairest way forward. There are some fisheries which have different management regimes which are based on good scientific evidence and on Lough Sheelin it is classified as a trout fishery. There is some good pike fishing on it, and some good coarse fishing, but it's predominantly a trout fishery and we manage it as such. The same is true as I say on the River Suck where there are excellent pike fishing sections. And we manage that as pike fisheries. We're not saying that all fisheries are equal and that every fishery will be managed as a mixed fishery, they won't. The fisheries will be managed to their optimum. So that means whatever species predominates on those fisheries and within scientific evidence we will manage that accordingly. CIARAN MULLOOLY Imposing the new permit is one thing, collecting the money for it is another. And the pike fishermen's organisation is predicting that when the coarse fishing season gets underway proper at Easter the board will have serious difficulties. In the meantime the tourism sector will wonder what real effect it will have on their business this coming year. MALE SPEAKER The majority or coarse anglers actually come over from the UK. They're UK working class men and women who… a lot of them are on a budget. But they come over and they're very loyal to Ireland and this is an additional cost to those anglers at a time when we want to try and make things more attractive for them to bring them over. We really need to get the numbers back up again. SEAN O'ROURKE And that report by Ciaran Mullooly. ----------------
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