Farmed salmon producer Marine Harvest Ireland (MHI) says it is turning away business due to the slowness of Irish licensing processes.

Farmed salmon producer Marine Harvest Ireland (MHI) says it is turning away business due to the slowness of Irish licensing processes.

IT is difficult to imagine that the after-dinner, residents’ lounge conversation among any group involved in how our seas’ resources are managed, exploited or shared would be a cheery, celebratory affair. 

An oral hearing into the granting of a licence for a salmon farm in Bantry Bay has been adjourned for at least a month after it emerged a technical report relevant to the proceedings had not been circulated to all parties due to an oversight.

A hearing into objections against the granting of a licence for a salmon farm in Bantry Bay has heard that, were the development to go ahead, it could prove a “tipping point” for local families who have fished the area for generations.

An environmental group has lodged an appeal against the expansion of a salmon farming operation in Bantry Bay, claiming that it would place too much stress on the marine environment.

SMOKED salmon is the easy part of Christmas. Throw it on brown bread, with lemon and black pepper, and the innocents will think it’s posh and that you’ve spent a lot. 

I refer to the article ‘Pesticides threaten shellfish industry’ (Irish Examiner, October 20).

The failure of Government departments to regulate fish farm-used pesticides is continuing to threaten shellfish and inshore fishing industries, along with marine wildlife, in West Cork.

Environmentalists are seeking a High Court injunction to stop a fish farming company extracting water from a Connemara lake so they can save farmed fish at risk of dying from disease.

After months of questioning, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has confirmed that up to 230,000 farmed fish escaped from their cages into Bantry Bay during February’s storms.

Political lobbying and funding political parties are two sides of the same coin. They are about trying to ensure that a certain view shapes Government decisions and legislation.

A Norwegian company seeking to expand its fish farming operation in West Cork has admitted that severe storms compromised its ability to treat its salmon for sea lice and other diseases last year — prompting environmentalists to say this bolsters their argument for closed containment systems.

A European Commission investigation into the impact of sea lice on salmon farms is to be reopened.

The report used by Bord Iascaigh Mhara to allay fears about the threat posed to wild salmon stocks by salmon farming has been dismissed as “flawed” by international marine scientists.

Environmental campaigners have demanded action on sea lice after a new report showed the number of infestations here trebled over a three-year period.

The discovery of huge quantities of toxic pesticides at a salmon farm in Scotland has escalated fears for a facility planned for Bantry Bay.

Twelve Irish food and drink companies have been participating at BioFach 2013 this week, the world’s largest organic food fair in Nuremberg, Germany.

Assurances given by a state body over risks to wild salmon have not eased coastal communities’ fears over fish farms.

Campaigners against a planned €3.5m fish farm in Bantry Bay have called for Ireland’s sea lice assessment system to be tested.

Shoppers are being encouraged to boycott farmed salmon by Irish anglers, coastal communities, and environmentalists opposed to the further expansion of fish farms around the coast.

Drystock farmer Pat Murray is facing a fall in income of €1,560 next year because of cuts to farm schemes by the Department of Agriculture.

A global anti-fish farming activist on a tour of the west coast has called for details of chemical anti-parasite treatments used in Irish waters to be made available.

An international activist dubbed salmon farming’s “public enemy number one” is set to boost the campaign against two major fish farming projects off the south and west coasts.

Up to 7,000 homes in the Beara Peninsula have been targeted by a voluntary group campaigning to prevent the expansion of Marine Harvest’s fish farms in Bantry Bay.

Sustainable, low-carbon food production is vital for Ireland’s clean image and also cuts business costs, according to 120 food and drink industry chief executives gathered in the UCD Michael Smurfit School of Business yesterday to launch a Bord Bia-led programme.

A Norwegian fish farming company is seeking to develop a closed container fish farm at buildings which were previously used for the processing of mussels in Bantry, West Cork.

THE dry weather continues and we have Ireland to ourselves.

A Bord Iascaigh Mhara employee was asked to leave a public meeting hosted by a group opposed to a planned €3.5m fish farm.

A West Cork campaign group aiming to halt the planning of an offshore €3.5m fish farm has called on its developers to locate the project inland.

TRADITIONAL fishermen, anglers and sailors, bed and breakfast-owners, hoteliers, harbour commissioners and environmentalists along with peninsula residents — it’s a disparate bunch.

Considerable disquiet has been generated by the plans of Norwegian company Marine Harvest to build a salmon farm in Bantry Bay.

Residents in West Cork, opposed to the development of a €3.5m fish farm by one of the world’s biggest aquaculture companies, have accused the developers of trying to “buy” the local community “with trinkets”.

A number of West Cork county councillors are “keeping their counsel” in a continuing controversy over a planned new €3.5m fish farm in Bantry Bay.

A harbour authority has lodged objections to a controversial €3.5 million fish farming project in West Cork by one of the biggest aquaculture companies in the world.

Salmon and trout stocks in West Cork rivers “are almost gone” due to fish farming around Bantry Bay, according to a former National Parks and Wildlife Services manager.

Opposition is mounting in West Cork to plans by one of the world’s biggest fish farming operations to develop a €5.5m organic salmon farm in Bantry Bay.

THE Marine Harvest plan for a new €3.5 million organic salmon farm site in Bantry Bay is part of a €14 million upgrade of its Irish sites.

MARINE HARVEST is one of the largest salmon-farming groups in the world.

TO SEE intensive farming in the west of Ireland, look towards the sea, where last week’s announcement by Marine Harvest Ireland of plans to develop a new €3.5 million organic salmon farm site in Bantry Bay raised the profile of an industry which has been quietly but steadily advancing for over 30 years.

ONE of the world’s leading seafood companies, Marine Harvest plans to invest €3.5 million developing a new salmon farm site in Bantry Bay, Co Cork.