Inland Fisheries
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-19
============================================================

Kieran O'Donnell (FG), Limerick City

I thank the Senator for raising this matter on carrying out a breeding cormorant survey of the Moy catchment in County Mayo, to inform an assessment of their impact on the reported decline of salmon in the river. I am taking this matter on behalf of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
The National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, is an executive agency of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which provides the legislative and policy framework for the conservation of nature and biodiversity in Ireland. It also oversees its implementation, based on good science, with particular emphasis on the protection of habitats and species through, among other means, the designation and conservation of sites under EU nature directives and national legislation. While the NPWS of the Department has a policy and regulatory role in relation to bird species, including cormorants, policy and regulation in the management of inland fisheries is the responsibility of Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, an agency of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment. This function includes the protection, management, conservation and improvement of inland fisheries, and the provision of scientific research and management advice to the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment, including in respect of threats to and pressures on species under its remit, including Atlantic salmon.
The surveying and monitoring of species and habitats form an important component of the work of the NPWS. Staff in the NPWS co-ordinate a national seabird monitoring programme that produces population estimates and other demographic statistics at various geographic scales in order to meet reporting obligations. It also provides relevant data to inform the conservation management of seabirds breeding and wintering throughout Ireland. The latest assessment of Ireland's breeding cormorant population across the period 2015 to 2021 indicates a broadly stable picture since the mid-1980s. A closer examination of the recent records for counties Mayo and Sligo shows that all of the known important cormorant colonies of these counties are sites along the marine coastline away from the River Moy catchment. Further surveys and monitoring initiatives for Ireland’s breeding seabirds are planned for the coming years with a view to producing an updated national assessment for cormorants and all other breeding seabirds by 2031.
It is worth noting the NPWS funds and manages the Irish Wetland Bird Survey, I-WeBS, which is Ireland's programme for monitoring population trends of wintering waterbirds and the habitats they use. Sections of the River Moy catchment, including Lough Conn and Lough Cullin, are regularly surveyed for cormorants and other wintering waterbirds. The aforementioned survey programmes collect valuable data to inform the conservation management of bird species. This data has other utilities for other stakeholders whose focus is on the conservation of fish species including salmonids. All data collated by the NPWS is available to be shared with Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, upon request, and can inform policy and regulatory approaches by IFI and the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment in relation to salmonids.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19