The establishment of Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) to replace the seventeen bodies – including the Central and Regional Fisheries Boards, the National Salmon Commission and the Fisheries Co-operative Societies - previously involved in the management of inland fisheries is the long-awaited signal that government is serious about protecting, conserving and developing this key resource.

Its CEO, Dr Ciaran Byrne, with his youthful energy, determination and vision - combined with a rare career skill set – is an assurance too that the revamped organisation is in capable hands and off to a good start.

Byrne has a degree in zoology, a post graduate diploma in statistics and a Ph.D. in fisheries parasitology from Trinity College Dublin.

The frequency and severity of storms is predicted to increase greatly over the next fifty years

Heritage Council/Fáilte Ireland

Climate change presents an immediate and significant threat to our natural and built environments and to the ways of life that co-exist with these environments.

Overseas visitors choose to holiday in Ireland for many reasons, chief among them being the richness of our cultural and natural heritage. As changes to the climate affect our heritage, then they will also have implications for Ireland’s tourism industry.

In response to this, the Heritage Council and Fáilte Ireland commissioned a report in 2007, Climate change, Heritage and Tourism, Implications for Ireland’s coast and inland waterways, to investigate how climate change will affect Irish tourism and the heritage of our coastline and inland waterways with an aim to help plan for the likely eventualities and to provide recommendations to Government on prioritising action.

The EPA report Urban Waste-water Discharges in Ireland (2006-2007) is a barely disguised wake-up call for local authority officials and politicians alike.

Its key findings are stark.

Despite acknowledging a marked increase in the spread and sophistication of waste water treatment plants throughout the country in the last twenty years, the report notes that without a marked improvement in the way many of them are operated and monitored, Ireland will fail to comply with the Urban Waste-water Treatment Regulation.

The cost of analysing a sample of urban waste-water is somewhere between €50-€100 per month

The fact also that 112 – or 23% - of the 482 villages, towns and cities audited still have either no waste-water infrastructure at all, or if they do, it is inadequate, should be enough to be keeping more than a few county managers and local authority officials awake at night.

And as if these findings were not sufficiently shocking, the shameful revelation in the report that 50% of waste water from Ireland’s treatment plants is failing to meet EU standards because plants are either not operating properly, or are overloaded, should make the rest of us very worried indeed.