Bureaucracy costs fish-farming up to €60m investment and 2,000 jobs

Bureaucratic bottlenecks in fish-farm licensing decisions have cost coastal areas 2,000 jobs and up to €60m in lost investment in the past five years, the IFA has stated.

A new IFA report entitled Removing Barriers to Irish Aquaculture Development concludes that marine investors are being dissuaded by the absence of a working, transparent licensing system.

The applications for licences must pass by the Department of Agriculture’s aquaculture and foreshore management division, its engineering division, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Marine Institute, Sea Fisheries Protection Authority, National Parks and Wildlife Service.