THE Government is hampering its own growth targets for fish farming through a "cumbersome, expensive and overtly politicised" licensing framework, a review has found.
The Grant Thornton review, commissioned by the Irish Salmon Growers' Association, says the industry could produce up to 35,000 tonnes of farmed salmon by 2000 with the right legislative environment. The industry produces 14,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon a year, compared to Scotland's 60,000 tonnes and Norway's 270,000 tonnes.
At 3.5 per cent of world tonnage, the Irish sector may seem insignificant internationally. But it is worth a "very significant" £45 million in annual income and employs 1,200 people in some of the remotest regions of the country, the review states.
Growers have "coped with a learning curve", and have developed excellent management information systems and "timely and regular" operational and disease control regimes to ensure "the highest possible control and clean water conditions", the review says.
Two threats to growth identified by the review include Norwegian over production and the legislative system. In the latter, most difficulties have their roots in the "sea trout saga", the review states - a reference to the controversy over links between sea trout decline and sea lice on fish farms. The Government's Sea Trout Monitoring and Advisory Group, chaired by Prof Emer Colleran of University College, Galway, last March recommended measures on single bay management and other strategies to reduce lice.
In a separate report, commissioned by salmon growers and Udaras na Gaeltachta, a Galway based scientific consultancy claimed there was no link between fish farms and sea lice. New research by Aquafact International Services says the greatest threat of infection to wild fish by sea lice comes from wild sources' at river mouths. The infection threat from fish farms is "minuscule", the study says.
This is the second such report from Aquafact, stating that sea lice and sea trout have evolved a parasite host relationship where both creatures inhabit the same inner bay.
