Inland Fisheries Irelands’ (IFI) Co. Mayo Game Angling Guide was launched by An Taoiseach Enda Kenny TD, in Breaffy House Hotel, Castlebar, Co Mayo, today. The guide is packed with information about the game fisheries of Co. Mayo including the all-important maps, seasons, methods and regulations. The guide is available free from IFI offices, tackle shops and is also downloadable from www.fishinginireland.info, IFIs angling tourism website.
The Guide will be essential for every visitor, overseas and domestic, who wants to get the most out of their visit by providing all the information needed to access Mayo’s often under-utilised angling resourc
Mr Kenny emphasised that the Guide showed that Mayo hasthe very best to offer across the whole range of game fisheries. These fisheries attract huge numbers of tourist and recreational anglers and acclaimed angling competitions such as the World Cup, which is fished on Lough Mask, are of real benefit to the local economy.
The Taoiseach commented that ‘To keep visitors returning to Mayo and the West, the quality of the fishing and support services have to be top notch. We have to continually reinforce the message that Mayo and Connaught is an angling paradise, that the infrastructure and information is available to ensure a wonderful angling holiday experience and that there is a real welcome for anglers – and the Euro they bring!’.
The Taoiseach praised the various partners who work hard to promote and market Mayo and particularly the efforts of IFI staff who provided the text, maps, layout and design and the majority of the photos for this guide.
Recreational angling has an estimated annual value of some quarter of a billion euro to the economy and supports some 5,000 jobs in rural and peripheral communities. The Taoiseach emphasised that sustainable development and balanced exploitation is the cornerstone of inland fisheries resource management and together with the on-going collaboration of IFI and its partners , Mayo can be sustained and developed as a ‘Mecca for angling’.
Minister Fergus O Dowd, who has responsibility for the inland fisheries resource, announced that a project to modernise and simplify the inland fisheries legislation is well advanced. He stated that following an update for the Government ‘the review of legislation will go to public consultation in the near future; overall it will consolidate and modernise the legislative code, decriminalising minor offences, addressing policing with a role for stakeholders and also tackling the system of rates and of funding for development’.