Unless immediate action is taken to allow adult salmon to scale a weir in Kilkenny city, the Office of Public Works (OPW), the Department of the Marine and the Southern Regional Fisheries Board will be asked "to account for themselves".
So warned Noel O'Flynn, chairman of the Oireachtas committee on Communications, the Marine and Natural Resources, yesterday.
Mr O'Flynn was at the fish pass on the Lacken Weir, Maudlin Street, Kilkenny, to hear anglers confirm that, for a second season in a row, salmon were unable to get over the man-made weir.
The anglers estimate that in December 2004 and January 2005, up to 1,000 salmon died trying to scale the weir, which was constructed using incorrect water levels.
The Oireachtas committees is also concerned about cost overruns on flood relief works in Kilkenny and the need for more investment in the weir.
Mr O'Flynn said there had already been two unsuccessful attempts to fix the fish pass and that the weir needed to be breached to allow the fish to get up river to spawn.
He said his committee launched a report on the preservation of salmon two weeks ago, in which it recommended that adult fish be allowed to return to the rivers where they had spawned to reproduce themselves. The "goings-on" at Kilkenny were completely at odds with this.
The Department of the Marine was involved in the fish pass debacle and this was also at odds with the Oireachtas report, he said. Unless there was a satisfactory and quick solution to the problem, he would be calling on the OPW, the department and the Southern Regional Fisheries Board, to account for themselves at a special hearing of the committee.
He said the fish pass in the weir was faulty; it was too long and steep, and the force of the current made it impossible for the salmon to get through.
Tommy Hoyne, chairman of the Kilkenny Anglers Association, presented him with an independent report on the installation of the fish pass, carried out on the club's behalf. It points to fundamental flaws on aspects of design, installation and location.
It says that even with the considerable remedial work planned and in the process of being carried out, it was "unlikely" the fish pass would work.
The OPW refused to comment on the report.
Mr O'Flynn and fellow committee members Brendan Kenneally and John McGuinness spoke to Minister of State for the Marine, Pat The Cope Gallagher, last night in the Dáil about the matter.
He will raise the issue of the weir today at the Fianna Fáil parliamentary meeting.