There is an urgent need to set up a separate, independent State authority to protect water quality in estuaries and inland waterways, and to remove the local authorities' share of responsibility for water, the Irish shellfish industry has warned.
County councils, the bodies largely charged with protecting the water, were in fact "the biggest single polluter", claimed Mr John Harrington, an aquaculture farmer of Kush Seafarms in Ardgroom, Co Cork, and a leading representative of the aquaculture industry. He said it was left to the fishery boards to police the water. The protection of water was not vested in any one authority and it was largely up to county councils.
"We are calling on the Government to remove that responsibility from the county councils . . . The biggest single polluters are the county councils."
He was speaking to reporters at the annual conference of the Irish Shellfish Association in Tralee, Co Kerry, at the weekend.
Shellfish farmers have become increasingly concerned over the downgrading of waters in harbours in west Cork and Kerry. Previously pristine waters have moved from class A to class B because of indications of increasing bacterial presence.
Agriculture and housing development without adequate water treatment facilities are blamed for the pollution, with untreated sewage or slurry getting into inshore waters.
Industry representatives said the industry had already taken the Government to the European Court over its failure to protect shellfish waters and the prospect of large fines were looming.
EU warnings had already been issued and the Government had until next month to respond, said Mr Ritchie Flynn, the association's executive secretary."It's a big problem. Class A means you can sell off the shore, eat the shellfish raw, class B means you have to cook the mussels and instal expensive filtering systems," Mr Flynn explained.
The British government had been forced to pay its shellfish farmers - where the industry was tiny compared to here - £50 million in compensation and had to upgrade water treatment plants after a similar European Court action.
Under a 1979 directive, the Government was obliged to protect shellfish waters, but it was ignoring this directive, Mr Flynn said.
The Irish shellfish industry was in its healthiest state in years and waters had been clear of bio toxins and the so-called red tide for a year, unlike 2000 and 2001 when much of the mussel industry was shut down because of red tide. "We have the confidence now in the system that consumers have absolutely nothing to fear from eating Irish shellfish," he said.
Based along the coast from Carlingford Lough to Lough Swilly, the shellfish sector employed 2,000 people, producing some 36,000 tonnes of farmed oysters, mussels, clams and scallops in small to medium-sized businesses and was worth €28 million a year .
Capital grants, largely EU money, were not being paid and had been frozen, with approved applicants receiving "comfort letters" from the Department of the Marine telling them the money would be paid as soon as it came from Brussels.
The Irish Shellfish Association believed the difficulty lay with the Department of Finance. The danger was if the money was not released over the next two years, the industry would lose out on up to €10 million in grant aid for piers and equipment.