Adam Maguire

Kevin Clarke – whose family owns Clarkes Salmon Smokery in Ballina, Co Mayo – said that, while he supported the ban in principle, he was frustrated by the way it has been handled by the government.

‘‘I’m not looking for a handout, but some kind of assistance from Enterprise Ireland should be provided,” Clarke said.

‘‘We’ve spent thousands marketing ourselves as wild salmon sellers and now it’ll be like starting the race again. Over the next year or two, we’ll need to re-sell ourselves and build a new base.”
Michael Wright, whose family owns Wrights of Howth in Dublin, supports the ban, calling it a brave step, but agreed it would be difficult to make the change.

‘‘We’ve built up a very fine business in wild salmon that has taken a long time to build up and this ban is going to be a disaster because there’s nothing to replace it.”

Wright said importing wild salmon from abroad or buying from anglers were possibilities. However, both were certain to lead to price rises.

Criticising the route being taken by officials, Clarke said there needed to be an integrated approach to restoring salmon stocks in Ireland.

‘‘Just looking at one element of it won’t work, we also need to look at issues like predators.

‘‘I’m not suggesting any kind of cull, but I can say with authority that grey seals have done serious damage to salmon stocks in this area,” he said.

‘‘We may even come to a point where we’ll need a catch and release system for anglers.”

But some producers are supportive of the new legislation.

Anthony Creswell, owner of Ummera Smokehouse in Timoleague, Co Cork, said he welcomed the government’s decision, but said that if it had followed scientific recommendations before now, a ban on drift-net fishing might not have been necessary.

‘‘It’s probably the best thing the department has done in a long time.

“The government has spent too long taking political, rather than realistic, decisions,” said Creswell.

He said his company had put more emphasis on organic salmon long before now, due to the inevitable decline of salmon stocks. Over the past three years, the company has slowly shifted its production to organic. He said the ban would have little impact on business.

‘‘Organic salmon is a very good substitute [for wild salmon] but I don’t know whether people will take to it,” Wright said.

‘‘It has slowly become more popular for us in recent years.”