The head of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has said the agency’s powers are too weak to deter polluters or respond effectively to pollution incidents.
Barry Fox, IFI chief executive, said his officers’ scope to investigate was restricted by legislation dating back to the 1950s. He added that the fines open to courts to impose on polluters – usually a few thousand euros - were too low.
“The penalty doesn’t fit the crime,” he said. “They significantly undermine enforcement efforts.”
He made his remarks as it emerged the true death toll from the Blackwater fish kill in Co Cork could run to hundreds of thousands.
READ MORE
Around 42,000 fish, most of them salmon and trout, were reported killed in the incident in early August. However, the Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy heard juvenile fish – or fry – were not counted.
Angling clubs said the true extent of the kill could be hundreds of thousands of fish and the recovery time, presuming there are no further incidents, would be 10 years. That is double the five years the IFI predicts.
A further pollution incident would “kill” the river, they said.
Failure to reflect the full extent of the damage in the official report published last week was one of many criticisms anglers’ groups told the committee they had. They described the investigation into the incident as “fundamentally flawed and uncoordinated”.
Conor Arnold, chair of the Killavullen Angling Club in Mallow, Co Cork, spoke on behalf of numerous clubs based along the Blackwater. He said there were unacceptable delays by State agencies in responding to the incident.
IFI were the first agency on the scene on August 11th, two days after dead fish were spotted and five days after the as-yet unidentified pollutant is believed to have entered the water. However, IFI inspectors did not have legal powers to take water samples.
Mr Fox said: “We are required to find a discharge of a deleterious matter into the waterway. We do not take water-quality analysis. We try to find where it [the matter] came in.
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said it appeared to be a “huge flaw” in the system that the IFI could not immediately take samples of water, fish and sediment.
Mr Fox agreed. “Our remit is quite clear and quite weak,” he said.
The Marine Institute, which has the main testing laboratory for analysing fish kills, could not take fish samples until August 14th because its limited staff were deployed on other duties.
There was conflicting evidence of when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) were notified, with IFI saying the call was made on August 11th and the EPA saying it was August 12th.
The EPA tested discharge flows from industries in the area that have EPA-regulated pollution licences, but it found nothing to link any of them with the kill.
EPA director of enforcement, Tom Ryan, was challenged repeatedly to explain the agency’s handling of North Cork Creameries, which has been in almost-continuous breach of its licence since 2020.
Mr Ryan said the company was initially the “prime suspect” for the incident but it was ruled out as the pollution source.
He said that the option of suspending the company’s licence “has not been taken off the table”. He confirmed the EPA, which regulates 900 industrial sites countrywide, had never suspended a licence.
“Our enforcement approach is to secure compliance,” he said.
Mr Fox told the meeting that draft new legislation was being drawn up to strengthen IFI’s powers and the minister responsible for fisheries, Timmy Dooley, was keen to progress it.
He said a new emergency response protocol was also being devised to get inspection staff on site at pollution incidents faster.
