Coveney must protect wild salmon

Your editorial comment titled “Aran salmon proposal — Report is challenged” (Aug 16) correctly urges Marine Minister Simon Coveney to review all evidence before making a final decision on the BIM application. We suggest that game, set and match must be awarded to the wild Atlantic salmon for a clean marine in Galway Bay.

Claire O’Sullivan, in the same issue, details the scientific ping-pong being played out in academia, while we see at first hand our valuable wild salmon smolts become infested with sea lice and die in vast numbers every season.

Hopefully, this costly debate has finally ended with last week’s University of Toronto study which demolishes the main defence that our minister and the EU relied upon until now. The good news for Ireland is that this news has come in time for consideration as he has yet to respond to the BIM licence application for the world’s largest ever fish farm in Galway Bay between Salthill and the northern waters off Inis Oírr.