IFA slams environmental group as ‘anti-development’

The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has accused an environmental group of being “anti-development” and of “condemning hundreds of young people to emigration” by its opposition to planned fish farms in West Cork and off the Aran Islands.

According to the IFA, Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) and “other anti-development lobby groups” have condemned “dozens of coastal communities to a slow economic demise by delaying vital inward investment by calling in the eurocrats to strangle fish farm development”.

Richie Flynn, the IFA aquaculture spokesman, said: “There is a generation of young people who can thank FIE for forcing emigration and a life on the dole for zero quantifiable gain for the environment or the economy. No sensible company or individual can afford to wait around for up to 10 years for answers to licence applications to produce quality salmon, oysters, clams or mussels — all of which are in severely short demand worldwide.”