High Court case over Kerry fish farm brought by environmental NGO

By Alastair Tibbs, The Kerryman

An NGO has brought a High Court case against the decision to allow a Kerry fish farm to continue operation.

Friends of Irish Environment (FIE) has brought High Court judicial review proceedings supporting the Agriculture Minister’s 2019 decision to suspend multinational corporation Mowi’s licence at Deenish Island in Waterville.

Mowi’s licence was revoked after it emerged it had harvested over double its fish quota, leading to a rise in effluent discharge from the site, according to agriculture minister at the time, Michael Creed.

However, this decision was recently overturned by the Aquaculture Licences Appeals Board which said the licence conditions were “inappropriate” and “not commercially viable”, noting the “significant delays” in Ireland’s aquaculture licensing system.

FIE’s High Court proceedings argue that since Mowi had “knowingly” harvested well over double the permitted tonnage and exceeded stocking limits set in the 1995 licence, any statutory right to continue operating under the legislation fell away.

They insist that the agriculture minister was correct to determine that the site be fallowed until a new licence, with full environmental assessment, is granted.

A review carried out of aquaculture licences in 2017 found that over a third of active farms had expired licenses, but were allowed to continue operation due their lodging of renewal application with the agriculture department.

“Our case is about more than one salmon farm in Kerry,” said FIE, “it is about a broken licensing system that lets intensive farms run on a ‘temporary basis after their licences expire regardless of continued breaches of licence conditions, while sea trout and wild salmon vanish and the legally required environmental assessments never happen”.