Stakeholders in France, Spain, Germany, Britain, who already lose far too many of their fragile salmon stocks to Irish drift nets, are furious, writes Orri Vigfusson.
The Government seems not to have heard the devastating news from its fishery scientists that salmon numbers in over half of the country's major rivers are so low that their future is in doubt. If it did hear it was not listening because it is reacting in ways that are either totally reckless or cynically callous.
Minister of State for Fisheries Pat the Cope Gallagher is planning to give Irish netsmen permission to kill off almost 140,000 wild salmon this year, even though these fish are desperately needed to restock Irish rivers and those of its EU partners.
Worse, that figure covers only legal catches - net-robbing seals and illegal netters will raise it to at least 200,000 salmon. The drift nets' share of the total EU catch has risen from 26 per cent a decade ago to 50 per cent.
Mr Gallagher appears to be flying in the face of reason. He is not only ignoring Ireland's wild salmon crisis, brought on by excessive drift netting. He is turning a blind eye to the rights of the other EU countries. He is rejecting the advice of his own scientists. Disgracefully, he is also reneging on the promises of his predecessors in office to adopt the scientific recommendations in 2005.
Well, it is 2005 and the scientists say a quota limit of 97,000 netted fish is the most that they can recommend. But the pledge to honour their advice has been tipped overboard. Mr Gallagher will almost certainly give the netsmen 42,900 more fish or 44 per cent more than his own expert advisers say is the most that should be risked. It is like leaving a wolf in charge of a butcher's shop.
Reckless? Obviously. The impact on Irish tourism is already severe. The fury of Ireland's anglers has reached boiling point. Stakeholders in France, Spain, Germany, England and Wales, who already lose far too many of their fragile salmon stocks to Irish drift nets, are furious.
They, being rational people, thought the crisis in Ireland's own salmon stocks must at last force the Dublin authorities to act logically.
Financially crazy? Most certainly. The respected firm of international economic consultants the Taoiseach hired to advise the Government on how it should handle the wild salmon resource said that a rod-caught salmon was worth €423 to the Irish economy against a mere €22 earned by a netted fish. It advised rebalancing the salmon industry away from netting. If this is how Mr Gallagher "rebalances", he is in for a fall.
But think again about callous cynicism. A senior fisheries official said recently that 1,500 netsmen were too many to compensate but reducing them to 500 would make a buyout possible.
Most of the netsmen complain there are too few salmon left for them to earn a reasonable living. The scientists say fish numbers are so low that nobody should kill any salmon in the fishery regions of Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Limerick, Sligo, Dundalk and Drogheda. They even recommended angling should be banned in 59 per cent of rivers. Is it possible the Government is deliberately encouraging the netsmen to fish themselves out of a job? That will be their fate if the numbers of returning salmon get any lower. That way there will be no compensation.
If so, this is a brutal way of saving Government money. Could it be that Dublin officials imagine that by engineering a much worse crisis they will get the EU to shell out more largesse? The European Commission will soon see through that ploy. If the drift netters are forced out of business, it is quite unnecessary.
The North Atlantic Salmon Fund, which has won the backing of most of the netsmen themselves, says the only sensible solution is a netting set-aside. We believe the nets should stop fishing for as long as it takes for salmon numbers to rebuild to the point when sustainable netting can be resumed.
We are totally committed to the principle that every netsman who volunteers to stop salmon fishing should be fairly compensated for his lost income.
That way everybody wins. It is the way to safeguard and rebuild what should be one of Ireland's most valuable natural resources. It would also end the disgraceful killing of the fish that belong to Ireland's EU partners and that they desperately need to begin their own restoration schemes.
The North Atlantic Salmon Fund offers this challenge: if the Irish Government is prepared to show the necessary leadership and contribute enough money to compensate its apparent target figure of 500 netmen, the private sector will do the rest. Anglers, fishery owners, tourist interests and conservationists in Ireland and on all sides of the North Atlantic are ready and willing to put their hands in their pockets.
This kind of agreement is already working successfully in Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Northern Ireland, the North Sea, Wales and England. Norway has just joined this list, leaving the Republic isolated as the one State still committed to large-scale Atlantic salmon drift netting. This is Ireland's chance to come in from the cold!
Orri Vigfusson is chairman of the North Atlantic Salmon Fund, Reykjavik.