Professor Tom Collins Opening Statement - Public Accounts Committee

Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) has been in stormy waters for a number of years. Despite much organisational change and improvement, IFI has not as yet fully navigated its way through these waters. Recent months have witnessed intense public scrutiny of the organisation, leading to much negative commentary.  The catastrophic fish kill in the Blackwater in August 2025; the PAC hearing of December 4th, 2025 and an ongoing WRC hearing have all brought the organisation’s role and capacity into the public gaze. As this WRC case is ongoing, IFI is not free to make any comment on it at present. 

In the period since the fish kill and indeed also since the PAC hearing of December 4th much of the criticism levelled at the organisation has been shown to be misplaced, sometimes based on incorrect data or erroneous assumptions. The independent European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC) report commissioned by IFI at the request of the Minister of State at the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, Mr Timmy Dooley TD, into the Blackwater fish kill points to the absence of an interagency protocol for dealing with fish kills and to the need for better communications between stakeholders responding to a fish kill. It is clear from the Report however, that by and large IFI managed the investigation competently and expeditiously. As requested by this Committee, IFI provided reports undertaken by IFI and other bodies on behalf of IFI and details of the investigation undertaken by IFI into the Blackwater fish kill on January 14th 2026. The JRC report is provided with this submission.

With regard to other issues raised at the PAC hearing of December 4th last, on January 14th the organisation submitted the detailed follow up information requested by this Committee. This includes detailed answers, supporting documentation and correspondence relating to the 34 additional questions forwarded by the Committee. As requested, we also furnished the Committee with all IFI Board Meeting minutes from 2020 to 2025. IFI provided the collection rate and value for fixed penalty notices for each year from 2022 to 2024, and copies of all documents sent to the Currency Publication under the Freedom of Information Act.

IFI has also submitted corrections to certain statements or assertions made by members at that meeting.  Some of these statements were central to the negative dynamic which characterised much of this meeting and to the consequential reputational damage to the organisation.

Special Audit Report 

While the instances outlined above  are of a more recent nature, they are contextualised against a background of serious historical governance issues in the organisation which were examined and well-ventilated in Public Accounts Committee Meetings on July 6th, 2023, February 6th, 2024, and most recently December 4th, 2025.   

These issues, among others, are examined in the Special Audit Report 2023 before the committee today. Briefly, they included, but were not confined to:

•  a failure on the then board’s part to delegate prosecutorial powers to IFI staff resulting in the withdrawal of a significant number of prosecutions before the court prior to 2023; 
• a car crash in which an IFI vehicle was involved and subsequently found to be uninsured; and 
• the removal of the remaining board members on a no-fault basis by then Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Mr Eamon Ryan TD in 2023 with two Section 18 appointees taking on the functions of the organisation up to the appointment of the current board in January 2024.

It is fair to say that the aftershocks of these upheavals and of the other matters dealt with in the Special Audit Report continue to reverberate through the organisation. These aftershocks have led to a sceptical political environment; a stakeholder constituency which is pawing the ground and a quizzical public. In short, the organisation is in an ongoing and uphill struggle to win back public trust.

If the organisation is to shed the weight of its history and move forward confidently into the future, it appears to me that at least three conditions must be met. 

Firstly, we must satisfy this Committee today that we have dealt as openly and comprehensively as possible with whatever questions the Committee members have – whether these relate to the PAC hearing of December 4th or otherwise. 

Secondly, we must be able to give an assurance to our parent department and the political system that governance weaknesses have been addressed and that to the best of our knowledge there are no others lurking.

Finally, we must remind everybody of the critical role of IFI in environmental regulation and particularly in conserving, protecting and managing our endangered fish stocks and waterways. 

1: PAC meeting of December 4th, 2025

The meeting of December 4th was a source of serious concern to all of us in IFI. As the Committee will be aware, in the period since the meeting a number of misapprehensions or misdirections on the part of some members of the Committee have since emerged. Collectively, these had a seriously adverse impact on that hearing. Today, I wish to re-affirm that:

• We have been advised that no summons regarding insurance was issued to the driver of the uninsured vehicle, notwithstanding assertions to the contrary by a member of the Committee. This information was provided to the Committee on January 28th, a copy of which is attached for your information. 
• Former Minister Eamon Ryan did not at any time commission a report into the matter of the uninsured vehicle – contrary to a number of assertions by a member.  The issue was the subject of an investigation triggered by a Protected Disclosure and reported to the IFI board at its meeting of February 26th, 2025.
• Allegations made against a former staff representative on the board were subsequently withdrawn by the deputy concerned and a clarification was made at the PAC on December 18th and the Special Report 118 was updated.

These inaccuracies contributed to many occasions at that hearing where interactions between the IFI delegation and the Committee were at cross purposes and cast a very negative pall on the proceedings. 

This is not to say that IFI is blameless. We have accepted the findings of the Special Audit Report in its entirety, and I would like to avail of the opportunity of this hearing to update the Committee on our efforts to move on from this Report and address the governance weaknesses identified in this and other reports. We welcome the opportunity of today’s hearing to address any outstanding questions which the Committee may have. 

2: Addressing Governance  and Organisational Weaknesses

On taking office in January 2024, the current board were presented with a governance review of the organisation just completed by Ernst and Young (EY) consultants. This report consisted of 11 separate recommendations -all of which have now been implemented.

Today, I can confirm to the Committee that the 2024 accounts have been signed off by the Comptroller and Auditor General.  A new CEO, Dr Eamonn Kelly, has been appointed after a public recruitment process managed by the Public Appointments Service. He will begin on April 13th. A new strategic plan for the organisation is complete and will be launched at an all-staff day on April 15th. A new Risk Officer has just taken up her appointment in the organisation and the recruitment processes for a new Head of People and Culture and for a new Head of ICT are now reaching a conclusion. 

We recognise that these green shoots will not entirely insulate the organisation from the negativity of former failures. But they may be the best antidote and show that the organisation is determined to continue the important work it has been charged with carrying out.

Protected Disclosures

At the meeting of December 4th, questions were posed by the Committee regarding staff culture and morale, particularly in the context of the excessive numbers of Protected Disclosures received by the organisation since 2022. 

In this regard it is important to point out that pre-2022, Protected Disclosures were rare. It was after the events of 2022 the numbers picked up rapidly. It is also important to note that the number of PDs does not necessarily correspond to the total number of individual disclosers. Any one discloser is free to submit multiple PDs. 

Of the 38 PDs received by the organisation since 2022, 29 were anonymous. A primary and critically important aim of the Act is to protect the identity of whistleblowers. The effort in investigating an anonymous Protected Disclosures is at least as substantial as that of a signed Protected Disclosure. 

Notwithstanding these caveats, we accept that this number of PDs should certainly be directing our attention to the issue of organisational culture. 

The Culture of IFI

On its appointment in 2024 the current board took on the task of meeting all staff in their regions in a series of staff consultative fora. The overwhelming impression the board took away from these meetings was of a highly motivated workforce, with high levels of specialist expertise and thoroughly committed to the goals of the organisation. 

We have since introduced regular all-staff briefing days and a quarterly staff newsletter. 

The board has also established a HR subcommittee- the Subcommittee for People and Culture- which is foregrounding the issue of culture and communications within the organisation.

It is acknowledged that one can never do enough in the staff communication sphere and undoubtedly there are more things we could do and improve upon in this domain.  However, I believe we have the systems in place to alert us to weaknesses and to ensure our energy and endeavours are properly focused. And this year, we will undertake a comprehensive culture audit of the organisation.

3: IFI - Role, Purpose and Effectiveness

Finally, can I turn to the existential question of the role, purpose and effectiveness of IFI. 

Ireland has 74,000 km of waterways -about 73,000km of rivers and 1,000 km of canals. Its lakes cover 300,000 acres and its coastline extends for 7,500 km. 

IFI has a staff complement of 329 people. Approximately 260 of these are frontline staff, so the ratio of staff to patrolling range is 1 for every 315 kms of waterway. By way of illustration of the scale of this challenge for the organisation, the distance from Dublin to Cork is 260km. 

If we include lakes in the calculation, the ratio of cover is 1:1,200 acres- in addition to the waterway coverage. 

And all this is before we take account of the coastline, estuarine and marine responsibilities of the organisation.

Pollution of Ireland’s inland waterways

The JRC report into the Blackwater fish kill (2026), referred to above, draws attention to the growing pressures on Irish waters, to their cumulative impact and to the increased risk of pollution from declining water flows in the summer period. It points to the need for real time monitoring of pollution discharges, ongoing vigilance to prevent unlicensed discharges and appropriate deterrents for environmental crime. 

It is probably true to say that every waterway in an area of intense agriculture or industrial activity is exposed to a heightened risk of future pollution events and fish kills. It is notable for instance, that in a recent National Agricultural Inspection Programme ( NAIP ) report for Co Cork, where farms are inspected for  compliance on a range of environmental criteria,  Co Cork as a whole had a failure rate of 43%; the West Cork area generally had a 51% failure rate,  “and the highest failure rate in the country was in the Fermoy district  where there was a  71% non-compliance rate and Mallow Kanturk with 56%.” (Southern Star,18th Feb 2026) 

This is further evidence of the pressures on the Blackwater catchment where, as the JRC report concluded, the cumulative effect of multiple pressures clearly contributed to the disastrous impact of what was probably a single, major pollution event on the river in early August 2025.

IFI staff are often the last line of defence in preventing environmental catastrophe, working to detect and stop point source pollution as well as damage to vital habitats. Over the past five years (2021–2025), the organisation has successfully concluded 120 environmental prosecutions through the courts. 

Penalties for these offences have ranged from applications of the Probation Act -often in cases involving major corporations -to a maximum fine of €5,000 in the District Court under the Fisheries and Water Pollution Acts.

This is not a sufficient deterrent. There is an urgent legislative requirement to address the issue of environmental crime so that the punishment reflects the serious nature of the crime and its consequences. The JRC report called for a “review of national policy as to the adequacy of the deterrence of financial penalties, including application of the Environmental Liability Directive ….(with) an increase in minimum penalties (at least 3%of the annual Union turnover of the operator)” in the previous financial year. (p18, 2026)

IFI has called for stronger enforcement powers and increased penalties for offences related to water pollution and habitat damage under revised regulations. We are working closely with the Department to progress key legislative improvements in this domain, details of which have been provided to the Committee in our submission of January 14th.

Restoration of habitats and ecosystems

IFI is also leading out on the restoration of habitats and ecosystems damaged in recent decades by drainage, peat harvesting, monocultural afforestation and agriculture. 

Questions were asked about the Boyne at the meeting on December 4th. 

The Boyne is arguably Ireland’s most sacred river. It might be suggested that it is to Ireland what the Nile is to Egypt!

Despite this, in the past 50 years, it is probable that more damage has been done to the river than in its entire 10,000 year history up to that –such that the river is now struggling for life. Commercial peat harvesting in the Irish Midlands after World War 2 ; the Boyne drainage scheme of the 1970’s; continued urbanisation along the banks of the river and intensive agriculture all combine to drastically diminish the river ecosystem such that the salmon stocks of the river are reduced to a fraction of their conservation thresholds. The river Boyne requires 10,242 adult salmon to return annually to be sustainable. At present salmon returns are only reaching 10% of its conservation limit. Not since 2006 has the river allowed for a sustainable harvest.

But against this grim scenario IFI staff are leading out on a salmon spawning ground restoration programme. On the Knightsbrook river within the Boyne catchment, 10km from Trim, spawning beds are being painstakingly rebuilt by importing gravel into the riverbeds and fencing the banks. Even in a short space of time, these initiatives are showing immense promise. This is one of a number of such projects throughout the country. 

On a larger scale, IFI is leading out on a 100 million euro barrier mitigation programme up to 2027. This will have the effect of removing man-made barriers to fish migration within river catchments. Such barriers might be simple culverts on streams, right up to major weirs. The organisation will shortly sign an MOU with Bord na Mona to work with them on river restoration work on the more than 70,000 hectares of estate owned by the Bord. Last year, it signed a similar MOU with Coillte. Similarly, the organisation has identified a number of priority catchments nationally that will form part of a submission for catchment scale restoration to the Climate and Nature Fund.

It is increasingly accepted that effective environmental oversight and regulation is a multi-agency endeavour. IFI is an important element in an ecosystem of agencies - governmental and non-governmental - building a collaborative culture and processes at local and national level across operational areas of environmental regulation, enforcement, research, monitoring education and recreation. 

Conclusion

It can be reasonably concluded that Ireland will not reach its carbon/ climate, biodiversity or Water Framework Directive goals without robust environmental regulation. It can be equally assumed that free market and commercial interests will push back against such regulation and will quietly rejoice in the defenestration of regulatory bodies.

The current discomfiture of IFI is an undoubted balm to such free market interests. IFI readily acknowledges its past governance failures. While the events under scrutiny today predate the appointment of the current board and most of the current senior management team, we completely understand that we will be judged on our effectiveness in dealing with the clean-up and the backwash from these events.  We recognise the absolute imperative of satisfying all of our accountability responsibilities in this regard, including our reporting to this Committee, such that we regain public confidence in our capacity to deliver on the crucial national objectives we have been entrusted with.

Tom Collins 

Chair