Reader's Blog: Agency swimming in the wrong direction
I take exception to the headline ‘Fishy facts in Fermoy weir story’ (Letters, October 22), penned by Dr Ciaran Byrne, chief executive of Inland Fisheries Ireland.
If there was anything fishy going on, it was the mincing of words by Dr Byrne, when he stated: “Inland Fisheries did not exist between 2006 and 2009”. This was obviously an attempt to discredit Donal O’Keeffe’s excellent article, “Town weary of inaction as amenity crumbles” (Irish Examiner, October 15).
I quote from Inland Fisheries’ own website: “IFI was formed on July 1, 2010 following the amalgamation of the Central Fisheries Board and the seven Regional Fisheries Boards into a single agency.”
So, by creating a new agency (IFI), officials think they can disassociate themselves from the sins of the old (Central and Southern Fisheries Board). Well, Dr Byrne, that won’t wash with the people of Fermoy.
We were there, in the River Room of the Grand Hotel, when Fisheries Board officials said they actually had an agenda to “remove every redundant weir in the country”. We were also there when those same officials threatened to bulldoze Fermoy’s 200-year-old weir, claiming “It’s only a lump of concrete.”
It would be more productive for you, as CEO of this new agency, to actually make a statement that there is no agenda and that you will do everything in your power to make sure that the weir project in Fermoy is delivered, by Cork County Council, speedily, and the safe passage of salmon and other migratory species is not impeded further by bureaucratic bungling at its very best.
