CAMPAIGNERS against a salmon farm off Shot Head in Bantry bay have said they are not too concerned about the reports last week that the High Court has decided that the licence application for the farm should be reconsidered.
Mr Justice David Holland, in a ruling published last week, said he had jurisdiction to seek the reconsideration of the licence by both the Aquaculture Licence Appeals Board and the Minister for the Marine.
The application, which was originally submitted in 2011, is from Mowi Ireland, a major aquaculture operator in Ireland.
Justice Holland, in his ruling, determined that it would be wrong to make the applicants go ‘back to the drawing board’ and create a new application in order to rectify the appeals board’s errors in considering the original application.
A judicial review decision in the High Court last July was thought to have ended a 12-year legal battle over the disputed licence.
The case revolved around the issuing of the licence to Mowi Ireland for a salmon farm with 18 cages on a 42.9 hectare site in the bay. The process saw numerous legal challenges, primarily led by local concerned groups, including Save Bantry Bay.
This week Bantry environmentalist Dofl D’hondt, who has campaigned against the farm, told The Southern Star that those opposing the licence were not unduly concerned about last week’s ruling. ‘This ruling that Justice Holland made won’t make any substantial difference to the ruling made last July,’ he said.
Eyeries-based Friends of the Irish Environment’s Tony Lowes said that the lessons to be learned from the case were laid out clearly by Justice Holland. ‘The licensing system for aquaculture is ‘unworkable, outdated and in need of root and branch reform,’ he said.
‘The High Court judge specifically highlighted the six years it took for the appeals board to determine the appeal against its decision when the statutory target is four months. Sending the decision back to an unworkable system is not the answer – the answer is reform of the legislation – something our politicians continue to ignore at the ongoing cost to our environment,’ he concluded.
Justice Holland had determined earlier that the licence should be quashed because there had not been adequate screening of risks posed by ‘seal-scarer’ noise devices in what is a protected conservation area.
Mowi proposed using the devices because, they said, seals are known to prey on salmon and can damage cages thereby allowing salmon to escape.
