Few Government ministers have the opportunity to directly benefit unborn generations. The Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, is such a fortunate individual. He can ensure the survival of an important species at no great cost to the State. He has been promoted to Cabinet rank at a time when the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, may be persuaded to devote some surplus cash to a great undertaking. Preservation of the wild Atlantic salmon is such a project.
Sadly, the numbers of these majestic fish have been in such steep decline in recent decades that their survival is in doubt. Last year's catch of 515 tonnes was less than a third of the average for the 1970s. And that benchmark was a pitiful reflection of earlier years. Climate change, water pollution, poaching and over-fishing by netsmen and rod anglers, along with general neglect by successive governments, have all contributed to the present unhappy situation. For decades, experts and officials have wrestled with the problem, producing reports that have invariably gathered dust. And the neglect continues.
The tagging of all salmon offered for sale - an anti-poaching measure that wasproposed by government twelve years ago - has been deferred until 2001. But the failure to join in an international effort aimed at protecting the species is woeful. Ireland and Britain are the only North Atlantic countries that have not moved towards ending drift-netting for salmon around their coasts. The countries close to the feeding grounds - Greenland, Iceland, Norway and the Faroes - have done so. But their fishermen now complain that they only conserve stocks to see them slaughtered by Irish and English netsmen.
Irish driftnet fishermen take about 70 per cent of the recorded salmon catch, worth less than £2 million a year. Most of the 1,200 licensed netsmen and their helpers fish off the west and south coasts, where alternative sources of work were once hard to find. But that situation is changing, while the value of catches is dropping. A Government compensation package might, at this point, encourage many of them to give up their licences, thereby augmenting the stocks coming into the rivers to spawn. At that point, rod anglers and fishery owners would have a responsibility to participate in further conservation measures.
Without radical remedial action, our wild stock of salmon could virtually disappear within a decade and both commercial and recreational fishing will be doomed. Conservation measures will involve pain for all those involved. For rod anglers, it will probably mean catch limits, catch-and-release in certain circumstances, and the curtailment of fishing in impoverished waters. Netsmen could face further conservation measures. Mr Fahey is in the driving seat. He can kick-start the project with a compensation package for driftnet fishermen. And Mr McCreevy may share in the public's approval.