Today in Dublin the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources, Mr Fahey, will start a campaign which is seen as a vital part of a plan aimed at saving salmon stocks.
The idea is to draw in all the "stakeholders" with a vested interest in a healthy national salmon resource - anglers, draft and driftnet fishermen and tourism bodies - and find a consensus.
How should our fisheries be managed? What is the best approach? Is it possible for each of the interested parties to give a little for the common good?
The plan is described as a catchment management initiative. Noble though the plan may be, putting it into practice will be another matter.
The sizeable angling lobby, for example, is against the catchment management approach as it is opposed to plans for anglers' logbooks and a tagging system to record their total catch.
There are murmurings in the air, protests have already been staged and participants in the otherwise peaceful and recreational sport are suggesting that an ugly "rod war" could break out again.
The start of the campaign, Source to Sea, which will involve a video, brochure and posters, comes, ironically, as the annual report of the South Western Regional Fisheries Board (SWRFB) claims a significant success for a pilot catchment management project in Co Kerry.
This is despite local anglers withdrawing their support.
Catchment management, says Mr Aidan Barry, chief executive of the SWRFB, is a "bottom-up" approach to conserving stocks rather than one which hands down edicts to anglers.
Its sole aim, he says, is to preserve and increase Irish salmon stocks and to do so by involving each of the strands in a working relationship at local level.
He says the very name of the project implies that those who reap the stocks of salmon in a particular region, whether for sport or commercial purposes, will draw up a plan for that region with their fisheries board and manage it themselves.
The anglers claim the approach is merely another mechanism to curb their traditional rights. When taken together with the proposed tagging and logbook requirements, they claim, it amounts to a double infringement of those rights.
Anglers will not stand for it, says Mr Richard Behal, president of the Federation of Irish Salmon and Sea Trout Anglers (FISSA). The mood of defiance within the angling community was growing and unless sensible solutions could be found there would be trouble.
Meanwhile, the pilot catchment management scheme on the Laune in Co Kerry proves, according to the SWRFB, that when ownership of a fishery is transferred to local interests there are benefits for all.
The proof, says Mr Barry, is that some 3,000 more salmon went up the Laune last year than in the previous year because the participants agreed to cap their fishing quotas or were compensated for not fishing.
He says that, while the anglers stayed aloof, the draft and driftnet interests combined with other sectors in the river system to promote conservation in a practical manner and ensure the development of the catchment.
The board's report says that while major pollution in the catchment is a decreasing problem, moderate pollution is increasing by about 1 per cent a year.
One of the highlights of the year in the region was that the Kerry Blackwater became a model fishery with a rod-catch ratio of 1.1:1. This means almost a fish a day if you are an angler.
Mr Behal says there are growing suspicions within the angling community that catchment management may be used to diminish or curb the rights already held by angling clubs throughout the State which may first have to surrender ownership of their fishery to the management scheme and then seek to have it restored under new arrangements.
He cites one club on the Flesk river in Kerry which began such negotiations under the Laune catchment plan only to be told its title to the fishery had no standing in law.
He says there are also fears about traditional access rights to the lakes of Killarney.
The tagging issue, he adds, raises concerns because it will be open to widespread abuse by those with no love for the sport, namely poachers.
Any purported angler, he argues, can apply for tags when heading for a day on the river, and all the signs are that the number of tags will not be limited to the five per day suggested under the scheme.
What's to stop poachers becoming anglers and abusing the tagging scheme? he asks.
Mr Behal rejects suggestions that anglers are against tagging because it will restrict them catching and selling salmon to commercial organisations.
"Of course, there may be greedy anglers, but 95 per cent are genuine and interested only in conservation and developing the sport."
The logbook, which will require clear identification of an angler's movements, is unconstitutional and restrictive, FISSA claims, but there are signs the Government will compromise on that issue to the satisfaction of the anglers.
Their opposition to tagging and catchment management, however, remains deep rooted. Without their goodwill it is debatable whether any long-term plan can be successful.