Salmon fishermen say a plan by consultants for the Central Fisheries Board (CFB) to promote tourist angling at the expense of the commercial sector will destroy coastal communities from the Aran Islands to west Cork.
CFB officers were told at a meeting of the South Western Regional Fisheries Board that the plan was unacceptable.
The Indecon Economic and Socio-Economic Evaluation of Wild Salmon in Ireland is due before the Minister for the Marine, Mr Dermot Ahern, next month. It will be discussed at tonight's meeting of the South Western Regional Fisheries Board.
CFB chief executive Mr John O'Connor said cuts in the number of commercial fishermen would be voluntary. He would also be prepared to look at extending the commercial 30-day season to allow early fish a greater chance and to allow greater exploitation of the later running fish.
Fishermen in the south west, where commercial salmon fishing is the largest in the country, have already voluntarily accepted quotas below the scientific catch and were confined to 30 days' fishing a year to preserve salmon, the fishermen said.
They said local authorities and fisheries boards had failed to implement clean water directives and to ascertain true salmon numbers.
"You are dealing with real people and real lives," said Mr Seamus de Burca, a drift net fishermen off the Cork coast. He has five children yet had to stand back while the salmon ran late and ended up dead upstream in polluted waters on the River Lee.
Mr Michael Neylon, for the Irish Salmon Traditional Netsmen's Association, said Indecon had overestimated the value of tourism angling at €11 million a year, and had vastly underestimated the potential of commercial salmon fishing at €4.8 million. Downstream activities such as smoked salmon operations had not been included in the analysis.
Mr O'Connor said tourist angling would not be developed at the expense of local angling and nobody would be forced out of the drift or draft net sector.