Fish farm licence delay ‘costing 2,000 jobs’

Delays in issuing fish farm licences have cost an estimated €60 million in investment over five years, according to a report published today by the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA).

As a result, the Scottish Orkney islands are farming more salmon than the "entire country" of Ireland, the IFA report submitted to Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney says.

IFA president Eddie Downey has warned that "job and export targets in peripheral coastal areas cannot be met" without a "radical streamlining" of what he terms the "bureaucratic bottlenecks" hampering the industry's development.

Farmed salmon
The report says that the Irish farmed salmon sector would "only fill a corner" of one Norwegian fjord, yet gives vital employment in coastal areas of Donegal, Mayo, Galway, Cork and Kerry.

“Despite Government inertia, Irish farmers have carved a niche at the high end of the organic market,” the IFA says.

However, it says that licensing delays are costing the economy “tens of millions in unfilled orders for fish and shellfish, as well as 2,000 skilled and semi-skilled jobs with a huge impact on peripheral local services and infrastructure”.

Under the current system, two divisions of the Department of Agriculture, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Marine Institute, Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and National Parks and Wildlife Service are involved in determining aquaculture licence applications.

Agencies which must be consulted include Údarás na Gaeltachta, Bord Fáilte, Commissioners of Irish Lights, Department of Transport, Department of Communications and Natural Resources, Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Marine Survey Office, Inland Fisheries Ireland and the relevant local authority and harbour authority respectively.

Decisions can be appealed to an Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board.

'Vested interests'
IFA Aquaculture chairman Jerry Gallagher said that the six State agencies, nine statutory consultees, four Government departments and appeals board can take "endless months and years arguing their own vested interests".

The IFA report says some 600 licence applications have been in the system for up to seven years.

“Irish aquaculture has the potential to be a significant employer in coastal areas hardest hit by job losses and emigration,” the report says, adding that the sector can sustain up to 2,000 new jobs and an additional half a billion euro in export-led growth.

“Irish advantages include our excellent marine sites, 40 years of farming experience and expertise in food exports that can launch aquaculture into a new phase of expansion and innovation, capturing an important share of growing world markets for seafood,” it says.