13/05/2002 - VOTE SALMON SALAR NUMBER ONE

Going fishing on May 17th? Time to decide who to choose. Conditions are dreadful. Big black clouds on the horizon. Our angling future depends on getting it right if we hope to preserve the few salmon Ireland has left. Most say it's gone past saving, while netsmen say there's plenty there yet to be skulled. Times are not the same. In 1975 Irish driftnets caught 700,000 in the season and with monofilament in full use everyone agreed it could not last. By the 1980's it fell to 400,000, but in 1997 quotas on nets were flagged to restrict the greed. In 1999 nothing happened as the Government bought a few more years trying to put quotas on the angler who took 3% of the catch while the nets took the remainder. in 2000 the nets were still being permitted despite a paltry 174,000 salmon yielding £2m. for the country while an £80m tourist industry is put on hold. Never mind those Europeans whose salmon we take. Brusells will always make us pay in whitefish at Xmas.

DECISION time. Vote to increase numbers of wild salmon, sea-trout and brown trout. What are the options?

First we have Fianna Fail ship, who do not care if we abandon them as they have the numbers anyway. Bertie the Skipper would have us believe his craft is best, new tonnage paid up, ship-shape and full of promise. FISSTA wanted him to buy the net licenses out but he used them. But his first mate Fahey has had enough of us and showed us the Dail door. He orchestrated the expansion of fish farming and gave EU grants to the Norwegians to do what they were not allowed to at home - breed sealice pollution that kills our wild salmonids and then ignored his own scientists report telling him to act now. When he was at the oars he announced everything, and we were hopeful, but it eventually resulted in nothing to protect wild salmonids. Maybe Bertie didn't know. Anyone in FF to lend a hand and rescue the salmon?

Our new gillie on the bank this time is Mikey the Mighty of Fine Gael who is a great talker. He knows all the right flies to use, where the fish are and how to catch them. Most of us have fished with gillies like that before. When we return empty-handed, failure is always someone else's fault, never theirs. Conditions are not looking good for him but Admiral Alan the Duke who rides shotgun promsied in writing to us that if he hooks the Marine job that salmon will win as well.

Labour's Ruairi the Rooster is cock of the beat and looks like he might do. He has sung with Phil Coulter and has joined Save the Swilly to promise an independent public inquiry into the environmental damage caused by salmon farming. The restoration of the wild Atlanitc salmon is in their bible and his able assistant at the helm will ring the warning BELL in their pledge to halt the dangers and to treat anglers as the victims they are and not the problem.

What about the Greens? Mary White came out first for the NASF buyout of nets. Their boatman, Trevor the Navigator, and MEP Patricia the real Skipper on aquaculture (Skipper, I said) has been unstinting in their pursuit of openness and truth about wild fisheries policy and are with us on the pollution caused by fish farms.

PeeDee Mary has got tangled on the bottom and wonders whether it is too late to cut the line now or wait to see if she can wade in and twist it out. What a pity the PD's insist consultation is the way forward. Anglers have been "consulting" with Ministers and fish farmers for 15years, with zero effect. Action now Mary! Just like you made Dublin smokeless after Pee Flynn left for the weekend. We never forget. Too bad Bobby is not with her - a friend to angling who was there for us in the rod war and the tag war last year, so keep taking his advice.

Nil faic deanta ag Gerry o Sinn Fein ar na mBradan a shabhail go foill. Ach bhfeidir go bhfuil sin rud maith. Thig leis an Ard Comhairle clarification a fhail o Mairtin ar an cuis eile iontach seo.

Perhaps the truth is that politics, like fishing, is largely a matter of luck. If conditions are right, we have a good day . But things are serious now because soon there will be no fish left to catch, other than stew-pond reared freaks - and who wants that? Do you?

Vote for the man or woman who promises to act immediately to save our wild fish. Don't compromise. Ireland's precious environment and endangered species called salmon, and all the creatures that depend on it for survival deserve nothing less.

VOTE FISSTA NO 1.