MUSSEL farmers have warned the Government that a decade-long delay in processing 500 aquaculture licence applications is preventing the creation of much needed jobs.

THE Government must grasp the opportunity to create 2,000 jobs in fish and shellfish farming, the Irish Farmers Association has declared.

A PROPOSAL by An Bord Snip to dissolve BIM has been criticised by shellfish and fin fish farmers around the coast.

THE shellfish industry employs 1,500 people and is worth more than €60 million a year to coastal communities, a conference was told in Westport, Co Mayo, yesterday.

YOU might not realise it, but every time you take the plunge in most of the swimming pools in the country, or plonk yourself in one of those spas, you are taking your life in your hands, and it’s not necessarily through drowning.

Shellfish farmers have welcomed new laws being introduced by the Government to protect 14 bays around the coast against pollution.

PIONEERING technologies and skills in production, processing and marketing has lifted the Irish rope mussel industry from zero over the past two decades to a position where it now has an estimated final sales value of €20 million, it was revealed in a report published yesterday.

The Government has been given a final written warning that water quality levels have reached unacceptable levels in certain coastal areas.

The Government has only days to come up with an explanation for the deteriorating condition of waters around the country’s coastline.

THE shellfish industry claimed yesterday it is being stopped dead in its tracks because technical problems are holding up grant payments.