#Fishing - Are Scotland's tiny Orkney Islands producing more farmed salmon than the whole of Ireland?
That's what the Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) claims in its latest report submitted to Marine Minister Simon Coveney.
According to The Irish Times, the new report also claims that delays in issuing new fish farming licences have cost the State some €60 million in investment opportunities.
The report's figures say around 600 licence applications have been in the system, some for as long as seven years.
IFA president Eddie Downey is calling for a "radical streamlining" of the "bureaucratic bottlenecks" currently stunting the growth of important aquaculture centres in on the west coast from Donegal to Cork, where the IFA contends the local industry has "carved a nice at the high end of the organic market" independent of Government actions.
The Irish Times has much more on the story HERE.