Letter to Minister Connick

The following is a copy of a letter sent to Minister Sean Connick.

Good morning Mr Connick
A few of my friends and family are heading over to County Kerry from the UK when the Bass close season is over (the only sea fish close season in Europe which protects this slow growing fish) for a fishing trip.

The fishing will be excellent due to the Irish world leading Bass protection legislation, would you like to join us? It should be quite reasonable. I give a rough breakdown below of our estimated costs.

There are 4 family groups of us heading over and we will take the Ulysses (Irish Ferries) over from Holyhead to Dublin (its very reasonable: only E160/vehicle return x 4 = E 640).

We will wait to fill the vehicles in Ireland as fuel is cheaper - so we will fill up in Dublin port, just before the tunnel (4 x E 60 = E 240) before heading straight to Landers Tackle shop in Tralee. We need a few bits and bobs of tackle in Landers for the week and they sell bait as well which is great, one of our number needs a new rod and reel and they have a good selection (4 x E 60 = 240).

Then we are heading out to the Seven Hogs hotel near Castlegregory which will be our base for the week. The Hogs is a great place to stay (E 4480 for 4 families for the week) and we have some very memorable evenings there, the steaks are particularly good. Talking of steaks, Mike Spillane down at Spillanes Bar in the Maharees probably has the best and we will all go down for about 2 nights in the week (E25 / head = E400), and then pop into Ned Natterjacks in the village for a few pints on the way home. All in all with lunches from the Spar in Castlegregory and the odd one at the Old Ship Inn Restaurant food should set us back around E 210/week/adult and about half that for the kids 8 x E 210 = E 1680 & 8 x E 105 = E 840, total E 2520

We’ll use Manzers Garage for fuel in Castlegregory (Im surprised they’re still open as hardly anyone uses them - but what a great service they provide) and should only need to fill up just after we get down and then again just before we leave for Dublin again, so 4 x E 60 = E 240 x 2 = E 480. So basically the weeks total will be E 10,000

It will be great to get down to Kerry to meet up with our old friends who tell us they are having a really tough time of the ’old recession’ (especially as so many Americans have cancelled this years holidays due to the Ash cloud - they just can’t rely on long haul tourism anymore) and its good that we can spend our holiday money an an area where it is sorely needed.

Hopefully we will not encounter too many illegal Bass nets (or dead dolphins on the beach from these nets) as they really make us question whether we should bother with Ireland and hopefully the Bass legislation protecting these fish will not change and allow their commercial decimation.

If the legislation is going to change could you give us a ’heads up’ enabling us to cancel ? We can then spread the word through the fishing clubs over here and through Europe enabling others to cancel as well.

We hope you will join us for what looks like a memorable trip, and quite possible the last one.

Best regards,
Richard